Banishing Discouragement

Let's wave our Bibles around and make Jesus glad and the devil mad.

Say this together say Heavenly Father, I'm so glad to be in this place.

I know the atmosphere is ripe for miracles.

I need my share of miracles and I want to be able to pass miracles along to other people as a song we were singing about being a witness.

I've been a witness of how good you are.

Thank you for the Word tonight.

I take it in, I receive it in Jesus' name.

Let's turn in our Bibles to Isaiah 42 and pick up with verse one.

Isaiah 42, isaiah was a mighty prophet.

Verse one behold my servant whom I uphold, my elect, in whom my soul delighteth.

I have put my spirit upon him.

He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.

He shall not cry nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.

A bruised reed shall he not break and the smoking flax shall he not quench.

He shall bring forth judgment unto truth.

He shall not fail nor be discouraged.

My margin says broken.

He shall not be broken till he have set judgment in the earth, and the aisles shall wait for his law.

And I wanted to just bring a message, a simple message entitled banishing discouragement.

Banishing discouragement.

You know, king Jesus, this is Isaiah prophesying about Jesus and the church.

King Jesus and his church, they're bringing justice and judgment to this world system.

It's what's going on right now, are we?

Another version I like is establishing true justice.

I mentioned the dual track justice system that we have now in America.

It's been around for quite a while.

People are not equal under the side of the Department of Justice.

If you're a Democrat, you have one standard and if you're a Republican, it's another standard.

It's ridiculous.

God hates it.

But in the midst of that, in the process of the time we're living in, he has regard for those that are bruised.

It says he won't break, bruise or crush them.

He's not in charge of breaking you.

He's not in charge of bruising you.

He's not in charge of crushing you.

He won't snuff them out as their light dims.

I never cease to be amazed at how merciful God is.

Oh, he's so patient.

I might give up on somebody.

You know I try not to.

Try my best not to, but you know there have been a few that I've just had to say okay, you've done all I could do.

They're not listening to me.

They're not listening to me and I just feel like I'm casting pearls before swine.

Amen.

So I just, at some point in ministry, you just have to.

It's not that I give up on them, it's just that I'm not being effective and so I have to withdraw because it's a dishonor that hurts them.

It hurts them when they're dishonorable to the anointing, not me.

I don't care about what they think about me, but the anointing that I carry is something I'm jealous over and so.

But God doesn't give up on them, even if I have to withdraw, even if I have to say well, lord, I forgive them, I love them, deal with them.

Lord, you've got a place for them where they'll receive someplace.

Jesus is a source of our strength.

He's not in the snuffing people out, and I'd like to say discouragement comes to all.

It's not about whether you're discouraged, though.

It's about whether you stay that way.

You know staying that way is dangerous.

So we're gonna talk about how to banish it, because discouragement is no shame in it, but we can't allow ourselves to stay there.

How many of you understand what I'm talking about?

That's a dangerous place to be in, a permanent pity party and a permanent attitude that you're the victim.

Listen, we all go through things, and the more mature you are in the Word of God and the more that you pick up on what the devil's trying to do there is.

That's another question altogether.

It isn't God that snuffs you out, it's the devil trying to snuff you out.

It's the devil trying to crush you.

It's the devil trying to break you.

You know we live in this world.

God chose this time for us to live.

We could have lived in the frontier days.

We could have lived in the revolutionary war days.

We could have lived in the dark ages.

We could have lived.

We could have lived any time, and God chose us to live in the last days.

And there is a, there is a grace, there is an ability that we can tap into, where we don't have to be so exhausted as we fight the contrary tide of the spirit of this age.

You know what I'm saying about.

We live in a time where everything we do has resistance.

It's just like you wade out into Galveston and man, I mean sometimes when the tide's coming in, I mean you feel it.

It's just it's fighting you.

Other times, if you get over in one of those rip tides, you could be in trouble.

If you're waist deep, they can pick you up and take you out way beyond the edge of the jetties, where it's really deep water and you're over your head and you could be way out.

You don't know how to fight the contrary tide and a lot of people are struggling right now because of these tides of this world.

And no, if you ever notice that your greatest victory I mean you just scored a victory the devil will come to try and steal your courage.

He'll try to come and snatch the victory out of your hands and turn it into an opportunity to be discouraged, to accuse, to assault and to rob you of your strength.

And the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Guess what?

He can't steal your joy, because that's part of your recreated human spirit.

You have the fruit of the spirit, which includes joy.

It's in there, whether you stir it up or not.

It's there, it's available, no matter what the devil does, no matter what the circumstances are.

But he will try to get you to not tap into joy.

He'll try to shut your mouth or else get you to talk about your trouble.

You ever notice, I mean before you know it, if you talk to some people, they'll just draw out of you all the negative and you'll be talking for 30 minutes about what the devil's done Instead of praising God for what God's done.

It's so easy to talk about the devil.

He's everywhere.

He's on television, he's in the movies, he's everywhere.

He's at your next door neighbor.

He's everywhere.

He's in the traffic.

Oh, the devil's in traffic man.

I know I'm the only one that noticed Jesus, aka the Word.

Huh, he's the Word made flesh.

Jesus is the Word.

Jesus, the Word will help you banish discouragement, for it takes root.

So I look in the Bible and I see so many Bible examples of people.

One of the most outstanding was this, john the Baptist, and I'll just you can look it up later like Matthew 11, one through six.

You know the story.

I mean he told Herod he couldn't have his brother's wife and Herod got mad.

See, he interfered in politics.

I guess, if the church shouldn't be interfering in politics, why did Jesus, why did the Word say that John the Baptist got involved in it?

He was speaking about morality and that was a king.

That was not an elected official, that was not a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

That was a king.

And you know well.

It says not to do that.

Yeah, no, it didn't know.

Fear of the Lord is the hate, evil, pride and arrogance in every evil work.

He spoke up against it and, of course, he was thrown in prison and he got very discouraged.

He got so discouraged that he called his disciples and he said I want you to go, jesus, I want you to go ask him are you the one?

Or look way for another?

Can you imagine?

John the Baptist said asked are you real, are you the Messiah?

And John the Baptist is one, a behover lamb of God who take the way to sins of the world.

Behold, he's the one that baptizes with the Holy Ghost and fire whose fan is in his hand.

He's the one that said that about Jesus.

And all of a sudden he got so discouraged he doubted that Jesus was even the Lord.

He doubted that Jesus was even the Messiah.

Which was his old.

Reason for his ministry was to prepare the way of the Lord, to preach repentance at preparation for Jesus to arrive on the scene.

What happened with Jesus when they came to Jesus?

Did he fire?

Tell him he's fired.

Tell him I'm all done with boy.

He went too far this time, you know.

Jesus started bragging on him.

Jesus started praising him and started talking wonderful things about him.

There's not been a greater man ever born than John the Baptist.

Nevertheless, you that are least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.

He's talking about the church.

So Jesus didn't break him, he bragged on him.

I like the testimony of Elijah, 1 Kings 18.

He killed the 400 prophets of Baal.

You know, he must have been a mean motor scooter, I don't know.

Anybody could kill 400 men by himself.

Remember?

They had the sacrifice to Baal and they jumped up and down on the wood pile trying to get it to ignite and try to burn up the sacrifice.

He said oh, god must be on vacation, he must be over at the latrine.

What he said, that's what he said.

He's occupied right now, sorry.

And then he in turn puts it all out there.

Okay, drowned it with a bunch of water.

Just bring all this water, just pour it all over the sacrifice, pour it all over the wood, pour it all over the altar.

And if the water was standing all around it.

And he called down fire from heaven and consumed the whole thing, just like that Lapt it up, lapt it up, lapt it up, lapt it up.

There's a word Lapt, it lapped it up and then he killed him 400 prophets of Baal Great victory.

Then he goes over to Mount Coramell, gets on the side of Mount Coramell and King Ahab is down there and he's waiting on the rain.

He said be careful, there's going to rain coming, you know, go check.

Go check, see if there's a cloud.

Well, I just see the cloud size of man's hand.

Get you down, don't let the rain catch you.

I hear the sound of an abundance of rain.

Before they could get out of there, I mean, it came a cloud burst and that broke the famine.

This was the moment that you know he had held, he had pronounced famine on the land three and a half years before, and now the famine is broken in his word.

And he outran the chariot of Ahab all the way to Jezreel, which is 20 miles.

And then what happens?

See, a great victory.

Look at that chapter, one chapter filled with victory, filled with the presence of God, filled with supernatural power we're talking about this morning.

What happened right after that?

Jezebel said I'm going to kill you.

And he got afraid.

He started running for his life.

I mean, he just up and ran.

Did God give up on him?

Did God fire him?

He said you're fired.

I'm ashamed of you.

Actually, he gave him three more things to do.

He gave him three more tasks to perform and he said and since you think you're the only one left that hasn't, you know, turned their back on it, let me tell you I've still got 7,000 in Israel that haven't bowed their knee to bail.

You're not the only one pal, you're not alone.

My point is that God didn't give up on him just because he got discouraged.

God didn't, you know, jesus didn't give up on John the Baptist.

God's not going to give up on you just because you go through a slick spot.

Are you with me?

Now?

One more.

I'll talk about David at Ziklag.

You know, david returned from battling the Philistines without them knowing that's what he was fighting against them.

They thought he was fighting for them and his 600 mighty men.

They come back home to Ziklag that was their city and they found it burned.

They found that their families had been taken, captured by the Amalekites, and all their stuff, and they were so tired and so worn out from battle that they just weren't up to this huge discouragement and they all wept until there was no more power to weep.

You can read it for yourself.

1 Samuel, chapter 30.

1 Samuel 30 · chapter mention

We could turn there, but I'm just telling the story because it's in your Bible.

They wept, they didn't pray, they didn't praise, they just wept.

And David was right there with them weeping.

No more power to weep, they wept their guts out, didn't have anything left, and then they started blaming David.

You know that's what happens to leaders.

Leaders get blamed when everybody else is discouraged.

They always point the finger.

It's your fault.

Look at what they did to Moses.

I mean, they're constantly blaming Moses.

Why'd you bring us out here to die?

You could have fooled me.

I thought you got delivered from Pharaoh.

They had always had it backwards.

They all had turned around.

See, they lie, they twist everything around to make themselves feel better.

I guess, I don't know.

It's human nature.

And so finally, they wanted to stone him.

And David encouraged himself.

And the Lord is God.

See, that tells me that at the very point of your greatest discouragement, you don't have to stay discouraged.

You can just turn it around and say bless God, I'm not accepting this.

I'm encouraging myself.

Nobody else is encouraging, everybody else is throwing rocks, but I'm going to encourage myself.

God loves me, he's called me, he's on my side.

No weapon for him against me shall prosper.

You start talking right and courage will come back in Glory to God.

He said, bring me hither the ephod that's the element of the priest's garments that they used to hear from God the umum and the thumum.

Why did I don't know, that's a weird makes my lips hurt when I say it Umum, thumum, but it's how they heard from God.

They didn't have the spirit of God inside them and so he prayed.

He said God, do I pursue them?

See, he didn't presume to go after them, he just asked God, should I pursue them?

And God said pursue, for you shall surely overtake and recover.

All Over to God, everybody say I'm recovering all, I refuse to be discouraged.

Well, he got his army together, but 200 of them were two.

They were just two give out, they couldn't go.

So he took 400 instead of 600, left the 200 by the stuff.

They stayed by the stuff.

He took the 400 and pursued the Amalekites.

They overtook them, they conquered them, they killed them all and they got their wives and children and their stuff all recovered and brought it back to Ziklag and 72 hours later he was crowned king Over to God, 72 hours away from his prophesied office of king.

He'd been anointed king since he was a teenager, but he's now going to be the king.

A lot of times, the greatest pressure that you experienced is right before a breakthrough or right after one, so that's when you've got to not lose focus.

Amen.

Are you getting anything out of this?

Well, aren't you going to talk about Jesus?

Well, yeah, jesus in the garden of Gethsemane.

But that was really not Jesus being discouraged for discouragement's sake.

He was discouraged because he was partly taking on that was redemptive suffering.

Remember where it says the chastisement of our peace was upon him.

That's when he began to take these things, right before the Christ.

It was right before the cross in the garden.

If you read it there in Luke 22,.

He began to be very, very troubled.

He asked them to pray.

They went to sleep and he said Lord, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me Nevertheless.

Not my will, but thine be done.

A lot of people try to pray that way.

Oh Lord, you know, if it be thy will, that was a prayer of consecration.

It was not a prayer that he expected God to answer.

He's telling God how miserable he is.

Why?

Because he is beginning to take upon him.

The chastisement for our peace and the prospect of being separated from the bright presence of the Father for the first time in all of eternity is weighing on him.

He was a man.

He suffered on our benefit.

That's redemptive suffering.

But what happened?

You got to turn these back on him.

No, he sent angels to strengthen him.

He could have melted.

Not sure what he would have done.

I don't know if he'd have turned these back on the cross.

I don't know if he'd have compromised.

I don't know.

He's a man.

He could have sinned.

If it was not a legitimate temptation, then it wasn't a temptation.

But he suffered in all points, like as we are, tempted in all points, like as we are, yet without sin.

He was tempted to give up, but he didn't.

And you don't have to, nor should you.

You can banish discouragement and if angels have to come and minister to you, you know what?

Has anybody ever sweat?

Drops of blood.

That's what he was going to.

He was so troubled he was sweating great drops of blood.

That's what tells me it was redemptive.

Whatever you're going through is not that bad.

Whatever you're going through is not as bad as what Jesus took for you.

Come on, lift your hands right now.

Glory to God, you're going to make it.

I said you're going to make it.

You're an overcomer.

God had given up on you.

No way, don't listen to the devil.

He's a liar.

So banish discouragement.

And the aim of this message is three things Stop listening to the voice of discouragement.

Verse Corinthians says there's many voices in the world, none without significance.

Train yourself not to listen to voices.

God wants to talk to you.

He can talk to you through the witness and, of course, he can deal with you what I call spectacular guidance.

He can give you dreams and he can talk.

He can speak to you.

I mean, I've heard the voice of the Lord before.

Usually it's the context of me.

Hearing his voice means I've got a whole lot of trouble ahead of me.

I don't ever ask him to speak.

I've learned to just walk in the witness, walk with peace.

So the voice of discouragement?

The first one stop listening to the voice of demons.

Demons have voices.

They'll accuse you, they'll condemn you.

A lot of times they'll throw a thought at you to see if it sticks, to see how you respond to that thought.

One of his favorite tactics is we're really low, is.

He'll throw the thought of suicide and we'll make the mistake talking too much about it and telling somebody you know I've been thinking about suicide.

No, no, that's a complete lie.

You have not been thinking about suicide.

The devil thought of it and threw it at your mind, and now you agreed with it.

Don't agree with the devil.

Never, ever.

You didn't think it.

Who is you?

Who are you?

You're a spirit.

You live in a body and you have a mind, a will and intellect.

The devil has no access to your spirit, man, but he's got access to your brain tissue.

He can throw a thought there and make you try to own the thought that he put there.

That's his favorite tactic.

Don't fall for it.

Don't fall for that, amen.

So he watches how you react to that thought, whether you'll own it or whether you'll just leave it there and not confront it.

Let's look at 2 Corinthians, chapter 10.

2 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

It tells you what to do the voice of demons.

There are so many wicked spirits that act in activity right now.

Verse three For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal or of the flesh, but they're mighty.

They're mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, the casting down of imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought, bringing every thought, bringing every thought in captivity into the obedience of Christ.

So you see, there it's, in reverse order of what happens.

First, the thought.

If you don't deal with the thought, if you don't cast it down and say no, that's not right.

The word says this I reject that thought, I didn't think that thought, I don't own that thought.

Devil, get out of here.

I'm not agreeing with you, I'm agreeing with the word of God.

See, that's what you do without thoughts.

You bring them into captivity, you capture them and you get rid of them.

But you know, sometimes we just let that thought rattle around there.

We're just too tired, we've got other things going on and we just don't say anything.

It just nothing happens and that thought is just gonna come back around like an eight track tape.

Y'all are too young to know what an eight track tape is, but anyway, I was big on eight track tapes.

I had lots of them, had a big old cardboard box full of eight track tapes in my van.

I needed a van to haul all my eight track tapes in, and they're an endless loop.

I mean you put one in and it plays forever.

It will play until the tape breaks.

It never stops, it never goes to the end.

There's never an ending, there's never a beginning.

It just keeps going.

Can't roll the skate on a buffalo herd.

You can have you happy if you might, man, you just go crazy listening to Roger Miller on eight track tape.

He's gone and on and on.

Shut up.

What do you have to do?

You have to eject the whole thing.

Well, that's the devil He'll make.

He'll run you crazy If you don't stop it.

But if you don't stop it, then it turns into an imagination.

The imagination is not a feature-length movie.

Imagination is just a video clip.

It's a clip.

All of a sudden, now you've got a little clip that you're running through your mind, a little clip, a little video and a little gif, a little you know, and all of a sudden, now you've got action to it.

If you don't do anything with that, then it becomes a stronghold.

And once it's a stronghold, and that's really you know.

That's why we're to govern our thought life, and it takes discipline, which is why I'm preaching this.

I believe you can have the Word of God to help you discipline your flesh and get into the weapons of your warfare.

They're not.

They're not carnal, they're not of the flesh, but they're mighty through God.

So when you say, in the name of Jesus, I cast that thought down.

It has to obey you.

You might have to do it again 30 minutes later.

You might have to do it again five minutes later.

It depends on the situation.

But if you'll just be diligent it will never turn into imagination.

But when it turns into an imagination, well now you're kind of in danger there, because now you're seeing more than just the thought.

You're seeing a clip, and when it turns into a stronghold, that is a full length feature movie.

That is going to be demonic.

It's going to take deliverance to pull that out.

Over all these 35 years of ministry I've seen people that just didn't take authority over their thought life.

They didn't use the weapons that they have been given.

What's the weapons in the name of Jesus?

The main one, the word of God, the Holy Ghost.

What more do you need?

You don't.

You don't need anything else, you don't need counseling, you don't need somebody to rehearse it all to and all that and go on and on and on.

You just need to obey the word, praise God.

Just learn to laugh at the devil.

You say what devil?

You say kill myself.

Why don't you kill yourself?

Take a long walk on a short pier, slide down a 20 foot razor blade into a tub of alcohol.

Y'all remember that when you're kids there was the most disgusting thing you could think of.

Ooh, what a horrible death that would be.

I tell the devil that still.

I still tell him that I know he won't, but it's just fun to think about 20 foot.

By the time you get to the bottom he's all the way splitting tooth.

All right.

Voice of demons.

Number two the voice of people, people.

Sometimes the people are those closest to you.

Jesus said that.

I mean, you know you're not going to pay much attention to a stranger, but if your spouse or your child or your parent or your sibling or your close friend says something to you that's discouraging, it's hard to just sluff it off, it's hard to ignore it.

But I could just say that being a doormat is not a virtue.

You don't have to put up with people talking to you in such a fashion that would depreciate or discourage you.

It's one thing to have somebody love you enough to hold up a mirror.

I mean, I've had good friends.

I had a good friend when I first got saved and I was griping about the church I was going to.

It was not Lakewood, I'd moved to Corpus and we were going to a new church.

I hadn't ever gone to any other church and I loved Lakewood.

I love Brother Osteen and Doty, I loved everything about it and I didn't.

I mean, I just had to move to go to work.

And I went to work and wrote into work with my boss, who was a Christian.

He didn't go to the same church I did and I was kind of complaining about some things about the church.

He said, griner, you just need to get in or get out.

You keep talking like that.

That's wrong.

You shouldn't do that.

That's murmuring and complaining.

God can't bless you as long as you're going to be.

You need to either be part of the solution or get out of the way and don't be part of the problem.

You need to make a commitment.

Well, you know what?

Now see, that was not abusive.

That didn't hurt my feelings.

It made me check myself and say you know what he's right.

Well, you know, we all need friends like that.

That'll tell us the truth when we need to hear it, instead of patting us on the back and agreeing with us when they know you're wrong.

But on the flip side, sometimes people can be, you know, jealous of you.

There's all kinds of things that motivate people to say ugly things, and you shouldn't have to put up with it.

You don't have to.

The Bible doesn't require you to listen to the voice of naysayers, to the voice of people that just don't want to.

You know, think the best of you.

Are you with me now?

I mean, you know you might have to stand up, grow a backbone and let that person know that they violated you know that that's not right what they said and you can't agree with that.

You're agreeing with God's word.

God's word says this and you know you don't have to be ugly saying it.

You just stand up against it and speak back to it.

See why?

Because their mouth is motivated by a little demon and they're listening to you.

Are you with me now?

I don't care if they are Christians.

Christians can have demons sitting on their shoulder.

Maybe you have to do it silently.

You know, I don't suggest having a fight over something like the little boy that was in church with his mama he's about five and he's wiggly and squiggly and he's having a hard time staying still and she said, johnny, sit down, and he would stand up after a couple of minutes.

And he'd be wiggling and standing up, you know, on top of the kneeler it's a Catholic church, you know, they got kneelers and so he's peering over the, you know, right on the shoulders of the people right in front of him.

Johnny, I said, sit down.

And finally, the third time, she just takes him and kind of pinches him, you know, and he says, well, I may be sitting down on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside.

He's got to have the ultimate defiance.

Well, maybe you've got to do that, maybe you've got to say it silently, maybe you've got to just be cool, don't get into an argument, it's not worth strife, it's not worth having a big come apart, just silent, and you say I don't accept that, I'm not going to accept that, and then start limiting your time that you spend with that person.

Of course, if you're married to that person, well, that's going to become difficult.

All right, voice of people.

And then, lastly, your own voice, because if you hang around and listen to demons and listen to the demons and other people long enough.

Eventually you start to agree with them and speak the same thing they're speaking and all of a sudden now you're saying the wrong thing about yourself.

And it's so good to know who you are.

In Christ, you're exactly who Jesus says.

You are what the Word says you are.

The Word says that you're the righteousness of God in Christ.

The Bible says that you can do all things through Christ.

Who's strengthened of you, amen.

The Bible says that God, he said you shall receive power after the Holy Ghost comes upon you.

So you've received God's ability to do whatever it is that you do.

You've got God's ability working on your side when you undertake to do anything.

So all these words, well, I'm weak, I'm not worthy, I'm not qualified, I don't deserve to blah, blah, blah.

Say, don't say those things.

Those are things the devil says about you.

Say what the Word says about you.

You stop agreeing with the naysayers, stop agreeing with the devil, start agreeing with the Bible, start agreeing with this Word.

That's why you should read it every day.

Start agreeing with it.

So, these three things voice of demons, voice of people your own voice, get control over number one, your thought life.

Number two your association.

You might have to distance yourself from some of the associations that you have.

Well, but they've been my friend.

Well, are they really your friend or are they a source of constant belittling?

I've had this work out in my life people that I've hung out with for a long time and I got close to, we had a very profitable friendship and suddenly, after I mean, it's just like I don't know why, but all of a sudden it turns and now they're taking their liberty to tell me all the faults that I had Kind of talking down.

It's not constructive, like I was telling you earlier.

I mean, that was a constructive thing I heard.

I can take constructive criticism, but just needless belittling, I'm not going to tolerate it.

So what did I do?

I just cut it off.

Sayonara, is that Japanese?

Yeah, I spoke Japanese just now.

Wow, all right, goodbye, amen.

Thought life.

See, get control over your thought life, get control over your associations, get control over your confession and banish discouragement.

Come on, lift your hands and receive tonight.

Praise God, we banish discouragement.

Glory to God.

We're not going to put up with it.

We're not going to walk in it.

We're not going to go, continue in it.

Well, we're going to banish it when it shows up.

Glory to God.

Did this help you tonight?

Amen, praise God.