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The Dangers of Discouragement-Part 2
To read part one of this article click here
Not only will discouragement cause us to pray the wrong prayer it will also cause us to:
I am sure that everyone has said things that they wished that they had not said or could take back. Words are powerful things and once said, no matter how much you wish you had not, they can not be taken back. There two men in the Bible who did the same thing (in reality there are more than two, but we will just look at two). They allowed discouragement to set in and wound up putting their foot squarely in their mouth and said things they wished they hadn’t.
A) Job-if there is one man in the Bible who’s discouragement may have been justified it would have to be Job. In chapters one and two of Job, he has as rough of a time as anyone could ever expect to have. And as one would expect, it affected him. After he has lost all of his possessions in chapter one and his wife had told him to curse God and die in chapter two, notice Job’s words in chapter 3:1 "After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. 2 And Job spake, and said, 3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived. 4 Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. 5 Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. 6 As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months. 7 Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein. 8 Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning. 9 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day: 10 Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.11 Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?" Have you ever noticed how when folks get discouraged they can suck the life right out of a room and make everyone around them miserable? When we wind up discouraged we need to be careful what we say.
B) David-There are also several instances when discouragement got the better of David’s tongue and he wound up saying the wrong thing in Psalm 116:11 "he said I said in my haste, All men are liars." In Psalm 31:22 the Bible records these words of David: "For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes"
If we are not careful (especially when discouragement sets in) we will wind up saying the wrong thing. I have heard people time and time again make statements that were without a doubt influenced by their discouraged condition. Some classic examples of this are as follows:
A) I am just one person-Often times we look at the overwhelming state of the world around us, allow the devil to get us discouraged and let fly with this "off the cuff excuse" for our lack of involvement in whatever is at hand. If all of the discouraged Christians who are using this excuse would do something instead of clinging to this excuse, we would be amazed at what would get accomplished.
B) The days of building a church by__________are over. Now you have to fill in the blank here, and I am pretty sure that they all get used. People get discouraged and find an excuse to pacify themselves (no matter how poor it is) and then try to convince everyone around them that they are justified for not doing what they know they should be doing. I have heard several variations on this excuse but by far the most popular is “the days of building a church through door to door visitation are over” There are two main reasons why this excuse is not acceptable.
1) There are places all over America where it is being done
2) There is no other way that the Bible tells us to do it
I realize that the first one of these reasons is subjective but it is true nonetheless. The second really
stands alone. Until God updates his word (and he won’t) we are to be busy spreading the gospel. I can
assure you that our lame excuses and sorry justification will not stand up at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
The second danger of discouragement is that we will say the wrong thing. Not only will discouragement cause us to pray the wrong prayer and say the wrong thing it will also cause us to think the wrong thing, which we will take up next month.
Until Then don’t find yourself praying or saying the wrong thing
Because of Calvary,
David Iseminger