Valley of Discouragement

And I've been telling you we have 222 sections to this series

that we're in this this time. And we were doing mountains and

valleys. And we just finished the

mountains last week. So now we are going to jump to

the valleys. And we said that the mountains

are, are, are are means of inspiration for us.

And I think they are. And we looked at seven of those.

But, you know, sometimes, and I think this is maybe the mark of,

of somebody who's truly a Christian or, or maybe somebody

who's at least wanting to hear from God and wanting to grow as

a Christian is that sometimes, you know, we don't like to have

our toes stepped on particularly.

And so we like lessons and and messages that encourage us.

But I think any Christian worth their salt likes to be told what

the Bible says that they need to do, especially when they're not

doing it properly or they're they're struggling in their

Christian life. They want to be maybe not have

their feelings hurt, but be instructed.

And so that's what we're going to get into this morning.

We've got 6 valleys that we're going to look at.

And these are, as we said all the way from the beginning,

valleys of instruction times, times, things that we can look

at and be instructed from them because we need that, You know,

we, we know often what we should be doing, but we need to be

reminded of that. And, and this is different than

just being encouraged to do it. This is sometimes being

reprimanded or being edified to, to do what we know we should be

doing. So this morning we're going to

look at the valley of discouragement.

And I'm not even going to have you raise your hands, but I'll

ask you this. How many have ever had a time of

discouragement? We all have.

So no point in even raising our hands.

But I'll tell you this, one of the problems with discouragement

is that it's contagious. And so when you're feeling, you

know, down in the dumps and feeling, feeling sorry for

yourself, maybe because you're discouraged for whatever reason,

in whatever capacity, that is contagious to those around you.

And we may, we almost get this mindset of good, everybody needs

to know how I'm feeling. But what happens is it

discourages the people of God in their work for God.

And we see that in Numbers chapter 32.

Numbers 32 · chapter mention

I want to read these 10 verses, Numbers chapter 32 verses one

Numbers 32 · chapter mention

through 10 and talk about them for just a second.

And then we're going to move away from Numbers 32 to another

passage that it actually references in these verses.

So let's jump right into that Numbers chapter 32 and verse

Numbers 32 · chapter mention

one. Now the children of Reuben and

the children of Gad had a very great multitude of cattle.

And when they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead,

that behold, the place was a place for cattle, the children

of Gad and the children of Reuben came and spake unto

Moses, and to Eliezer the priest, and under the Princess

of the congregation, saying, Aderoth and Diban, and Jazer,

and Nimrah, and Heshman, and Eliela, and Shebum and Nebo, and

beyond, even the country, those are all cities, even the country

which the Lord smote before the congregation of Israel is a land

for cattle. And thy servants have cattle.

Wherefore, said they, if we have found grace in thy sight, let

this land be given unto thy servants for possession, and

bring us not over Jordan. And Moses said unto the children

of Gad, unto the children of Reuben, Shall your brethren go

to war, and shall ye sit here? And wherefore discourage ye the

heart of the children of Israel, from going over into the land

which the Lord hath given them? Thus did your father's when I

sent them from Kadesh Barn Dia to see the land.

For when they went up into the valley of Eshkol and saw the

land, they discouraged the heart of the children of Israel, that

they should not go into the land which the Lord had given them.

And the Lord's angle was kindled the same time and he swears,

saying, surely none of the men that came up out of Egypt from

20 years old and upwards shall see the land which I swear unto

Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, because they have not

wholly followed me. So to, to give you an

explanation of what's going on here.

And maybe maybe you do understand.

I, I've often read this passage, maybe when I was younger and not

really understood what's going on here.

You, you understand it's not a good thing.

But what is happening? Well, he mentions this in verse

9 When when I when the when the children of Israel went up into

the valley of Eshkol and saw the land, you Gad and Reuben

discourage the heart of the people to go.

So what's he referring to? He's referring to when the spies

went into Canaan. They were not supposed to wander

for 40 years. They were supposed to come out

of Egypt camp, go spy out the land and then go in and take it.

And because they, they didn't believe that God could do it and

they and they voted basically not to go into Canaan.

God says, fine, you're not going to go, but you're going to stay

here for 40 years and every man 20 years old and up is going to

die in the wilderness before I let you go in.

The problem is Gad. And OK, so 40 years have come

and gone. It's time to go into Canaan.

And we see here in verse one, the children of Reuben and the

children of Gad had a very great multitude of cattle.

They have gotten so comfortable outside of that promised land.

They don't want to go in now. And remember, pastor talks about

this all the time or fairly often where he says, you know,

crossing into Canaan is not heaven.

It's going into the Christian life.

Imagine being so comfortable in your work or your career or

whatever it is that that when the gospel is given to you, no

thanks. I'd rather have what I have

here. That that's happens all the

time, doesn't it? We, we witness to people all the

time who are just, there's no sense of urgency for their soul.

They, they're fine. The Bible says that what is the

profit of man if he gains the whole world and loses his own

soul? Well, that's a picture of what's

going on here. They are about to go profit in,

in, in the sense of gaining Canaan land.

They're not interested. They weren't they weren't afraid

to fight because if you keep on reading that story, they they

even tell Moses, fine, we'll go fight when you have battles, but

we, we want to come back out here where the, where the where

our cattle are. We don't want Canaanite.

We don't want the promised land. And it's just amazing to me that

that this whole tribe of people is fine with not taking that

promised land. What, what 40 years did to them.

But in verse 9, we see when they went up unto the valley of

Eschol. Now this is this is not the

children of Israel. This is this just the spies when

they went up into the valley of Eschol and saw the land, they

discouraged the heart of the children of Israel that they

should not go into the land which the Lord had given them.

So this is referring to Numbers chapter 13.

Numbers 13 · chapter mention

So I want you to go back to numbers 13.

We won't be back in Numbers 32. So don't don't need to hold your

your spot there, but we're going to go to Numbers chapter 13.

Numbers 13 · chapter mention

We're going to pray and then we're going to get into this

lesson on the valley of discouragement and let's pray

and then we'll get right into it.

Father, I thank you for this day that you've given us.

God, I thank you for your word and the lessons that we can

learn in it. God, I pray that you'd help us

to be encouragers like Barnabas was.

God just encouraging your people not just but to be happy or

anything like that, but to to go forward to work for you and to

go forward in our Christian lives to to grow our faith and

God, just as we get closer to heaven that we would do

everything we can to live according to your word.

And I pray that you'd use this lesson this morning to help us

do that and kind of just pray that you be with the words that

come out of my mouth to to instruct and to edify your

people in Jesus name, I pray, Amen.

All right, so numbers chapter 13 is what he's referring to there

Numbers 13 · chapter mention

in verse 9, when you were supposed to be going up into the

land to spy it out, you discouraged the heart of the

people. Now the name Eshkol means a

bunch or a cluster, which kind of infers grapes, right?

And so when you, when you, you hear that when they came back

from Canaan spying, they, they were carrying clusters of grapes

between two men. I mean, imagine that the, the

clusters of grapes that were in that land.

And that was just a small sampling of, of what was going

on in the land of Canaan. And they had seen all these

victories that God had given them.

They, they've been given this promise, this land of promise.

They had been delivered from the bondage of Egypt.

They had seeing the presence of God and the Tabernacle that he

instructed them to build. And yet when it comes time to go

spy out this land, Gad and Reuben.

Now there were ten of them, but Gad and Reuben were two of those

10 that said we can't do it. We can't do it and discourage

the heart of God's people. So Numbers chapter 13 and verse

Numbers 13 · chapter mention

one and two. This Commission that got that

they were given to go spy out the land was given by God and we

see that all the way through this series.

God tells the people to do something.

This is God telling them to go do it.

It's not just something that Moses said.

I don't think we can take it. Let's, let's check it out first.

God tells them to do that. Look at verses 1 and 2.

The Lord spake unto Moses saying, Send thou men that they

may search the land of Canaan, which I gave unto the children

of Israel of every tribe of their father.

Shall ye send Amen, everyone a ruler among them.

You know, if, if it'd be one thing if we, if we were going to

look for a piece of land, right for for a property to, to put a

church on. And we said, all right,

teenagers, y'all just go figure out where's a good spot?

You know, OK, we could give them a pass that they can't figure it

out. They didn't find a good deal.

They don't know what they're looking for.

We could give them a pass. These guys look at verse 2 of

every tribe of their father Shahi send Amen, everyone a

ruler among them. These are rulers.

So the the elite of each tribe send the best man you have from

each tribe, a ruler of each one of these 12 tribes send them.

These men knew what they were looking for.

They knew what was expected. They knew what God had promised.

They're leading their tribe through, through or out of Egypt

behind Moses. And those are the men that said,

we can't do it. We we cannot do it.

So it's not that there was just these 12 random men or these 10

random men who told Israel we're not going to be able to do it.

And then there were other more spiritual men that went with

them. These were the the leaders of

their tribes. Well, of course the people are

going to go along with them and, and be discouraged in what God

was telling them to do. This was a, a divine Commission,

but it was actually very, very detailed, exactly what they were

supposed to be doing. Look at verse 17.

So verses 4 through 16 are all the men that went, and we're not

going to read through them, but it gives you each man from each

tribe, and you recognize a few of those names in there,

hopefully. But then verse 17, Moses sent

them to spy out the land of Canaan and said unto them, get

you up this way southward and go up into the mountain and see the

land what it is. So they're supposed to go up

there and see the country, see what they're up against.

So see what it is and the people that dwell there in.

So see what country it is, what people there are there, whether

they be strong, or weak, or few, or many.

Verse 19. And what the land is that they

dwell in, whether it be good or bad.

And what cities they be that they dwell in, whether in tents

or in strongholds. And what the land is, whether it

be fat or lean, whether there be wood there in or not.

And be of good courage, and bring of the fruit of the land.

And now the time was the time of the first ripe grapes.

But anyways, he tells them a very specific detailed

Commission of what they're supposed to do.

And he says in verse 20, and be ye of good courage.

And the first thing they do is now we can't do this.

And we'll look at that in just in a in a few few minutes here.

But be of good courage and, and bring back some of the fruit of

the land. That's why you have them later

bringing back clusters of grapes and, and and they did bring a

good report back of the land. The land was great.

I believe it says it's a place flowing with milk and honey now,

not literally, but there that was their representation of

there's it's just a overflowing it's abundant with fruit and and

everything that we'd we would need to live there.

But we can't we can't take these giants that are in the land.

But they had a detailed Commission and then in verses 21

through 25, they go and do what they're supposed to do for 40

days. So they went up and searched the

land from the wilderness of Zen unto rehab as men come to

Hamath. And they did and they ascended

by the South and came up onto Hebron where a hymen, Shiche and

Talmai, the children of Anak were.

I remember those the, the children of Anak were giants.

Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt, and they

came under the brook of Eshkol. Now you got to remember how, how

close they are to Egypt. They, they have not when we talk

about them wandering for 40 years, they weren't wandering

because they were trying to get to the, to Canaan.

Hebron is a that's where the children of Israel lived when

they were slaves in Egypt. So they're not far from coming

out of Egypt. It's just that that because of

this discouragement that they gave to the people, God has them

wander around and and surely they would have seen the same

things over and over and over. Talk about discouraging but that

was their punishment anyway. So verse 23 And they came unto

the brook of Eshkol, and cut down from thence a branch with

11 cluster of grapes and bear it between two upon a staff.

And they brought up the pomegranates and of the figs.

The place was called the brook Eshkol because of the cluster of

grapes which the children of Israel cut down from thence.

And they returned from searching of the land after 40 days.

So this is the time of the first, first crop of grapes.

And it's one cluster so big they've got to have two men with

a staff and it's hanging from there.

And they called the place the brook of Eshkol, the the brook

of clusters because of the fruit that was growing there.

But they spent 40 days just like God had told them to do.

And then they come back to give their report to Moses.

And this is and here's what we see in verse 33.

And when they and there that we saw this is the this is the

majority of these spies, the 10 spies that came back with a bad

report go to go to verse 32. And they brought up an evil

report of the land which they had searched under the children

of Israel, saying the land through which we gone to, we

have gone to search is a land that eateth up the inhabitants

thereof. And all the people that we saw

in it are men of a great stature, which I don't believe

you know, every single person was a man of great stature.

But that's what that's their report.

They're men of great stature. And there we saw the giants, the

sons of Attic which came of the giants.

And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers.

And so we were in their sight. So he said, you know, we, we

looked like grasshoppers to them and we felt like grasshoppers

ourselves. We cannot take this land of

Eshkol. The, the fruit is great, but we

can't take it. But the minority report, you've

heard that before. The minority report though, was

Caleb and Joshua. And they here's the problem is

the children of the, of the other 10 tribes were looking at

themselves compared to the enemy.

Joshua and Caleb looked at themselves compared to or the

enemy compared to God. And they said they are giants

and we can't take them without God doing it for us.

And that's the that's the difference in our outlook, in

our own lives. You know, I was thinking about

this as I studied this lesson this week.

You know, we, we don't only get discouraged by, you know, a bad

day at work. Sometimes we get discouraged for

good reasons. I am doing everything I can or,

or I'm trying to do what I need to do to fight this temptation

or this sin that keeps on taking me down and I'm discouraged

because it keeps it keeps on getting me.

That's a good thing to be upset about that.

That shows that your heart is still soft.

And in the sense that you want to walk with God, that's a good

thing. But when we get to the point

where we say, yeah, there's no way for me to beat it, that

that's what the children of Israel, these 10 spies, that's

where they had gotten to this. It's a good land that you've

sent us to. But there's no way that we can

take it where the other two that we can take encouragement from

even in our own lives. It is this sin is something I've

dealt with for so long. What, whatever it is bitterness

or, or or envy or pride, that's one thing we we deal with in our

own home. Everything I believe we do, we

can almost trace it. Almost everything we can trace

it back to pride. If you're mad at somebody else,

it's because you feel like you've been mistreated.

If you disagree to the point of, you know, anger with someone

because you feel like you weren't hurt.

If we are not witnessing the way we should, almost always it's

because I don't feel I feel too shy that that's pride.

When we were in Belize, I, I this always goes through my

mind. We walked into the school

because we were there doing a bunch of work for the school.

And so we went in to see the kids while they were in class

and one of the teachers said, say hi, say hi to pastor Boots

and brother Brian kids. And and it was kind of like, and

she said being shy is selfish and it's proud.

Remember that she told all the kids that it was obviously

something they always they go over being shy is pride.

And I thought, man, that that is very interesting.

That's that's actually what it is.

When I'm too shy to to witness to even my friend, I'll talk

about anything else with them. But when it's time to witness to

them, I'm too shy. You're not shy.

We're proud because we're afraid of what they'll think of me.

But pride. But anyways, my whole point is

when we think that I cannot conquer this thing, it's because

we are looking at us compared to that thing or that sin rather

than that sin compared to God. He's much stronger than that

sin, but we need him to help us to take over to, to conquer that

sin. And So what were the conclusions

that these, these spies had come to?

They, they concluded that because we are grasshoppers in

their sight, we cannot take them take, take this land.

And you know, it's, it's interesting that our focus, and

I've already sort of mentioned this, our focus, what we are

focusing on effects our faith. We have so many examples of it

in the Bible, but even we, we have examples of this in our own

life. When when you are focused on

what I'm not going to be able to do is there's just no way it

does affect our faith in, in, in meaning.

These children of Vigil came back to the to these spies came

back to the children of Vigil and said what we've seen and

what were they focused on? They weren't even focused on the

fruit of the land. They certainly weren't focused

on the command of God to go take this land.

They were focused on. These giants were grasshoppers

in their sight. And they're not afraid of us.

We are very afraid of them. They were their focus affected

what they were supposed to go do.

I don't think that Moses, in fact, I know because of the what

the passage here. Moses was not telling them go

see if we can take the land. He was telling them from God's

command. Go see basically what's the best

route to do it and and what are we going to be up against?

Surely they saw Jericho when they went into that land and

they see these giants who are now not just giants, they're in

these fortified cities. And their focus was on that

there's no way, no way we can take this land.

And so in verse 31, we see that the majority of these spies, but

the men that went up with him said we be not able to go up

against the people for they are stronger than we.

Their focus was on those people. But you see in in the minority

reported in verse 30, Caleb stilled the people before Moses

and said, let us go up at once and possess it for we are well

able to overcome it because of their focus.

What were they focusing on? And I don't want mean to beat a

dead horse, but that's their focus was on God told us to do

this and with his help we can. And then 40 years later, they

see that that's exactly what God wanted them to do.

No, you can't take Jericho, not on your own.

And pastor just preached a message on this.

But but I can take it any. And I believe that he did that

for for that specific reason. Had them March around the city,

never lift the sword against it to take the walls down or

anything like that to show them 40 years ago, I had this exact

same power and this is what I wanted you to do.

But you waited 40 years to come conquer this land that I was

going to conquer for you, but you were discouraged.

And the children of Gad and the children of Reuben.

It's it's interesting in numbers chapter 32 where we started, he

Numbers 32 · chapter mention

doesn't call all the other 8 tribes out.

He calls out Gad and Reuben for discouraging the heart of the

people. Now they're getting ready to go

in 40 years later. And I do believe that if Gad and

Reuben had been given a chance to go talk to the children of

Israel about going in to Canaan 40 years later, they would have

discouraged them again and said, I don't think we should.

We're fine here. We've we've built lives for

ourselves. And that's why Moses was so

upset 40 years ago. You discouraged the heart of the

people. And now here you are again

trying to, to, to get the children of Israel not to go in.

Or if nothing else, at least you guys all go.

We're not going to fight with you.

And anyway, So what are the consequences of actually, I

wanted, I wanted to show you something else.

In verse 30, Caleb stills the the people before Moses and he

doesn't say we are able to overcome it.

He says we are well able to overcome it.

And the point here of this lesson that I that I want you to

get out of this is I said this at the very beginning, but our

discouragement is contagious. And you, I, I know we've all

seen this, whether it's at work or whatever else.

It happens fairly often. If you when I'm on a job site

and things aren't going right, it's like people pile on what

the problems, right? Well, yeah.

What are we going to do about this?

What are we going to do about this?

And what about this? And I'll say often, I don't need

to hear the problems. Tell me what your plan is to fix

those problems. I know what the problems are.

And I think that's kind of what we we have here in this

pastor's, but also in our Christian lives.

You know, the pastor doesn't need to hear all the problems

with everything. And I don't mean he doesn't need

to know what's going on. I mean he doesn't need to hear,

you know, somebody for a silly example, spill something in the

foyer, come run into the pastor. They spilled something in the

foyer. Well, clean it up.

You know, he's got enough issues that he's dealing with.

But but that's something silly. But I'm talking about, you know,

issues between church members and things like that.

The Bible tells us exactly how to fix those things.

You go to them, you fix it. You don't need the pastor to get

involved to, to fix some of these small issues because

that's what it is. It's discouraging that your your

discouragement if you want to call that or call it that or it

is contagious to those around you.

Anyways, I think, I think we've, we've covered that enough, but

think about how your, your spirit, because that's what it

is, a spirit of discouragement. But think about how your spirit

effects other people. And we know this is the case

because looking at this passage, I believe the children of Israel

are ready to go into Canaan. Moses was telling them let's go

and they were ready to go. And then these 1010 men and, and

by all estimates, this is 1 to 2 million people of Israel that

are ready to go. And 10 men discourage them so

bad that they, they chose to stay in, in Canaan against

Moses's direction and against Caleb and Joshua's, you know,

encouragement. They chose to stay in the

wilderness for the time being. And God says, all right, fine,

I'm going to punish you for 40 years.

And but ten men were able to do that to 2 million people.

Think about your spirit in a church or maybe a group of

people in a church that get this, maybe not even bitter, but

but an attitude of we can't do that.

We, we can't, we're just not big enough or whatever the reason

may be. Think what you're that spirit

can do in a, in a small church especially, and and then take it

the other direction. When you have a small group that

goes, oh man, we're excited about this.

We can, we can go do that. It gets everybody excited.

And I'm not talking about the power of positive thinking, I'm

talking about a spirit of encouragement among God's

people. And So what are the consequences

we have? Well, first of all, that

minority of men, we've already talked about this discouraged.

We see this in Numbers 32, Nine. You don't need to go back there.

For when they went up unto the valley of Eshkol and saw the

land, they discouraged the heart of the children of Israel and

that they should not go into the land which the Lord had given

them. So they discouraged others.

And we've talked about this already, but it, it was

completely contagious. And 2 million people who had

never even seen the land said, yeah, yeah, we can't go.

They're too big. And I, I can imagine, because I

know people are we all we, we know how we are.

I can imagine the the murmuring that went through that camp.

Yeah, they did You hear what he said?

He said they were, we're grasshoppers.

They must be 12 feet tall. You know, who knows how tall

they actually were? They were giants.

But I mean, if I saw a 7 foot tall guy, I'd be like, man, he's

a giant. You know, I mean, they may not

have been that big. They were big.

But the whole camp is discouraged by these, these ten

men. But then look at Numbers chapter

Numbers 14 · chapter mention

14 and verse 29. So the consequences of this

where they discourage the people.

But then in Numbers 14, verse 29, they definitely delayed

Numbers 14:29

progress. How long?

40 years. Verse 29.

Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness, and all that

were numbered of you according to your whole number from 20

years old and upward, which have murmured against me.

Verse 33 And your children shall wander in the wilderness 40

years, and bear your whoredoms until your carcasses be wasted

in the wilderness. They delayed this progress.

I mean, you know, they say, they say the the eighth wonder of the

world is, is compounding interest, right?

But you have to get started. You have to have time to get

that going. Imagine what they could have,

where they could have been 40 years down the road with this

land that God had given them. I mean, think about it, a land

that was OK in 40 years, they were able to build it up to such

a point that they weren't they didn't want to leave.

Imagine if they were in this land of, of, of milk and honey

and the grapes that were gigantic.

Imagine, imagine where they would have been 40 years down

the road. Imagine where they would have

been in the conquest of Canaan. Didn't take them that long to

take Canaan to take all those cities.

It didn't take them that long. They would have, they would have

had the whole land conquered and been and been living where God

wanted them to live. And I think, think about this in

your life. I think there are, there are,

there are things in our lives that we just get.

I don't mean that we're fine with it, but we get so used to

living with it that we go decades living with a, a sin or

a, a discouragement or, you know, whatever it may be.

Sometimes it we don't even look at things as sins where, you

know, maybe you're, you're, you have anxiety about, about

something. Sometimes we don't look at those

things as but God wants us to conquer those.

And so as long as we sit outside of Canaan, because I just, we

can't, we can't take it. It's too hard.

We sit there for decades in discouragement and in, for lack

of a better term, in our sin that we have just become

comfortable with. And, and, and I'm not, I'm

purposely not mentioning specifics because every one of

us is different and there are things that we deal with.

And you, you know what they are in your life that should have

been conquered 10 years ago. But you know, I mean, everybody

has their thing. Why?

Why do we have our thing? Because we've not chosen to go

into the land and conquer it. And so they delayed this

progress that God had for them for 40 years.

Now look at verse chapter 14 and verse 30.

They were denied this possibility that God had given

them. Doubtless you men that are 20

years old and up, ye shall not come into the land concerning

which I swear to make you dwell therein.

Except Caleb the son of Jafuna, and Joshua the son of Nun, those

are the only two that get to go into this land.

You've walked across the Red Sea on dry land.

You've been delivered from Pharaoh's army.

You've seen God's presence on Mount Sinai.

You've seen all this stuff. But God's not big enough to take

these, these people that we are grasshoppers in their sight.

And so God denies them even the chance to go in and take it.

Fine, you're going to you're going to wander for 40 years and

none of you are going to come in except Joshua and Caleb.

Now we have, you know, commands in the Bible for how we are to

escape this trap of discouragement.

There's a reason that the Bible tells us to rejoice evermore.

That's how you get out of discouragement.

There's a reason we're told in everything, give thanks.

Not in everything be happy, but in everything, give thanks.

And I mentioned this before, but you know, give thanks when you

have a a not I don't even mean just a trial, because we can

give thanks in those for for all kinds of things.

But I'm talking about give thanks in a battle with a sin

because you a get a chance to fight it and overcome it, but

also because think about Job. It might be Satan being sent

because God is saying go, go try him.

We get we have so much to to give thanks for, not to be happy

about in in in temptation, but to give thanks for and I want to

think I want to, I want to look at one last thing.

And we're not even going to turn there forsake of time.

But think about the lasting, the lasting effects of

discouragement in your life. You know, there's a, there's a

family I know and I and I won't mention their name or anything,

but the, the mom for decades and decades has has dealt with

really just discouragement. They, they they've, they've

diagnosed it now as mental illness, but she's just

discouraged. Everything discourages her

super, really nice lady, I believe a good Christian woman,

but just discouraged. And I saw, I saw something on

Facebook with her son and her daughter.

They just had the two kids and both of them are in therapy for

mental illness because they're so discouraged.

I think it's, I think it's generational.

And I reason I say that is you remember the story of the maniac

of Gadera, right? And God heals him, casts out

those, those, those spirits. And where do they go?

Into the swine, right? Then the swine dive off the

Cliff. And what are the, the, the men

of that city? What do they, what do they come

to Jesus and say, you got to get out.

You're ruining our, our, our, our economy.

Really. Do you know that those are the

same tribe that are here, the Gadarenes, That's Gad.

Do you know that's the same tribe in Numbers chapter 32,

Numbers 32 · chapter mention

that when they're supposed to be going into the promised land,

they're like, we're good here with our cattle and our sheep.

We're fine. Now Jesus is coming to save

their city. I mean, he is coming to he.

He comes to their city and shares the good news of Jesus

Christ, heals A maniac they've been dealing with for years.

And because of their animals and their thing, they discourage the

people from believing in Jesus because of their economy, their

money. I think this is generational.

I think, I think it doesn't have to be, but I think it is when

you, when your kids are in your house and they see nothing, but

you know, whatever the sin is bitterness or or pride or you

know, you're, you're always talking to other people down

because to, to bring yourself up and make yourself seem so much

better. Your kids pick up on that.

It's it. And it may be very subtle, but

they get the same mentality and then off they go and they're

proud and they're, they're bitter and they put others down.

What do you think that is? Do you think that's a, a

generational sin in that it was passed down in their blood?

No, they pick up on that and they that's how they act because

that's all they've ever seen. And I think, I think this

discouragement can be very much picked up by your kids.

And and they then deal with this, maybe not the same sins,

but the same answer to those sins.

We can't, we can't beat it. We're just going to have to

live, you know, as best we can. We'll go to church every week

and we'll, we'll try to serve God, but we can't, we can't

overcome these certain things. Yes, you can and and that's what

Moses was so upset with the children of Gad and the children

of Reuben. You've discouraged the heart of

the people. This is one of my favorite

verses, first Samuel chapter 30 and verse 6 and I'll just read

1 Samuel 30 · chapter mention

it to you and then we'll be finished.

What do we do about this discouragement?

David was greatly distressed. This is when he came back from

Ziklag and and well, the the Philistines had completely taken

everything, taking their wives, taking their kids, completely

decimated everything they had. David was greatly distressed for

the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of the people

was grieved every man for his sons and for his daughters.

What's David do? But David encouraged himself in

the Lord his God, and that's the answer to it.

Encourage yourself in the Lord. The two, the two spies who

believed they could take the land, that's what they were

doing, encouraging themselves in the fact that God told us to do

it so we can do it. They encourage themselves in the

Lord. And so both ways, discouragement

is very contagious and so is a spirit of encouragement.

Barnabas was called the son of consolation, the encourager.

Why? Because it didn't matter what

situation they were in. Hey, God told us to do this, we

can do this and people were encouraged to go do that.

And so be an encourager this morning and and this week

instead of a discourager. It's very easy.

We all know that quote. It's not the the man, the critic

who counts that's a discourager, somebody who who goes and

encourages God. People though they're rare, but

they're also needed. And so I encourage you to be

that person this weekend and going forward.

All right, the valley of discouragement.

Let's pray and we'll be done. Father, I thank you for this

day. Thank you again for your word.

Thank you for the lessons we can glean from it.

Thank you for these examples, the good and the bad God, the

ones that we can not emulate and the ones that we can follow.

I pray that you'd help us to be encouragers to your people, to

your church, to your pastor. Pray that you to your under

shepherd. I pray that we be encouragers to

all of those this week and with our lives.

Pray that you'd help us to do that.

In Jesus name I pray. Amen.