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.
I want to read these 10 verses, Numbers chapter 32 verses one
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
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.
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.
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
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
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
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?
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
14 and verse 29. So the consequences of this
where they discourage the people.
But then in Numbers 14, verse 29, they definitely delayed
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,
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
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.