The Power of Overcoming Discouragement R1310

You know, here comes all of this stuff, these people and this anger and this ridicule and this effort to get everybody to come and join in, destroying what Nehemiah was doing and using sarcasm and doing everything they can, questioning the builders. So Nehemiah and the people go and cry out to God and they plead with him. And verse seven says, it's like it didn't phase the spiritual warfare. It's like they just relentlessly pursued. This is the bottom line.

This is where I'm particularly interested. What did they do about this discouragement? Here it is. Number one, they cried. They cried out. Verse four said they cried out to the Lord. They cried out to the Lord.

They just cried out to God. Oh, yeah, we're plugging into the power, the power of overcoming discouragement. That's today's message from Dr. Don Wilton. And in just a few moments, we'll dive into that Bible study. But Dr. Don wants us to begin by reminding you we're here for you. We love to talk with you, pray with you, even right now. 866-899-WORD will connect you with us. That's the telephone number 866-899-967. Or you can meet with us online at theencouragingword.org.

That's theencouragingword.org. We'd love to connect with you and connect with resources that will help you grow in your daily walk with Jesus Christ. So now let's discover more about the power of overcoming discouragement with Dr. Don Wilton. I want to speak to you today on a very, very serious subject.

I don't know that we can overemphasize this together. So I want you to open your Bibles to Nehemiah chapter four, and I'm asking you, all of you, to get a copy of God's Word by whatever means. Maybe on your iPad, if you've got a hard copy, I have a hard copy in my hand here. We've placed Bibles in the pew racks right there in that beautiful Genesis service as we worship together. Wherever you are today at that bedside, if you're just listening, listen. I'm going to ask you to really listen to God's Word.

And I'm going to be in Nehemiah chapter four. Now before I read, if you could just, I just would like to say this to you. I'm going to speak to you this morning on the power of overcoming discouragement. Anytime you serve the Lord and you seek after God, you are going to face an intensified level of spiritual warfare. Everybody listen to me. Can you think of any reason why the devil wouldn't want to get you?

You've got a wonderful family. Your heart is at least trying to do what God wants you to do. You're wanting to hear from the Lord. You're wanting to live for Him.

You're wanting to heal your marriage. You're wanting those demons to be cast out of your life. Did you know that fasting rallies angels together? You are calling on God's angels. Can you think of any reason why that old devil is sitting up there saying, this is just wonderful.

I'm so grateful that they're getting serious with God. You and I are going, if you haven't already, you are going to become the focal point of spiritual warfare. Discouragement is going to come at you. He's going to throw everything at you. He's going to throw it at your family. He's going to throw it at your business. He's going to throw it at your church.

He's going to try and do everything to trip you up, to stop you, to discourage you. Nehemiah was a man after the heart of God. There's nothing in this story about Nehemiah that would seem to suggest that he was doing anything other than wanting to do what God wanted him to do. God showed him the problem. The walls were broken down in Jerusalem.

Gates were burned. He said, Lord, I'll do it. He was honorable. He went to the man he served, to the king. He got prepared properly. He went over there. He spoke to the people.

He did nothing under the table. He met with God and that old devil said, I'm going to do everything I can to stop you. So let's just read about it. Nehemiah chapter four, and I'm going to just read this straight through.

So read and listen and God's going to speak to you. Nehemiah chapter four, now when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged and he jeered at the Jews. And he said in the presence of his brothers in the army of Samaria, what are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice?

Will they finish it up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, the burned ones at that? So Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him.

He joined in and he said, yes, what are they building? If a fox goes up on it, he would break down their stone wall. Verse four, hear, O God, for we are despised. Turn back their taunt on their own heads and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captive. Do not cover over their guilt and let not their sin be blotted out from your sight, for they have provoked you to anger in the presence of the builders. Verse six, so we built the wall and all the wall was joined together to half of its height for the people worked with all of their heart. But, but when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward and that the breaches were beginning to be closed, they became very angry. And they all plotted to come together, to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it. And so we prayed to our God and we set a guard as a protection against them day and night. In Judah, it was said, the strength of those who bear the burdens is failing. There is too much rubble.

By ourselves, we are not able to rebuild the wall. And our enemies then said, they will not know or see till we come among them and kill them and stop the work. At the time, the Jews who lived near them came from all directions and said to us ten times over, you must return to us. So in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, in the open places, I stationed people by their clans with their swords, their spears and their bows. And I looked and arose and I said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, do not be afraid of them.

Remember the Lord who is great and awesome and fight for your brothers and your sons and your daughters and your wives and your homes. When our enemies heard that it was known to us and that God had frustrated their plan, we all returned to the wall, each to his own work. And from that day on, half my servants worked on construction and half held the spears, shields, bows, coats of mail. And the leaders stood behind the whole house of Judah who were building on the wall. Those who carried burdens were loaded in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon with the other. And each of the builders had his sword strapped to the side while he built.

The man who sounded the trumpet was beside me, said Nehemiah. And I said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, the work is great and widely spread and we are separated on the wall far from one another. In the place where you hear the sound of the trumpet rally to us there because our God will fight for us. So we labored at the work. Half of them held the spears from the break of dawn until the stars came out. I also said to the people at that time, let every man and his servant pass the night within Jerusalem. That they may be a God for us by night and may labor by day. So neither I nor my brothers nor my servants nor the men of the God who followed me, none of us took off our clothes.

Each kept his weapon at his right hand. You know, if I can just say to you, and I just want to give a note here, I've already promised myself that I'm not going to try and get through everything in this message. If I need to carry this over to next week, this subject is so important. But there again, we'll let the Lord decide these things. I think Nehemiah's discouragement was evident in a number of things.

Let me just give these to you. Let's think about Nehemiah for a minute, not ourselves. Just let's talk about what we've read about here.

Just let's put it on the table. So how was this spiritual warfare, this discouragement? Here's Nehemiah, these people, God told them what to do. They were going to do it. They were sitting about, they were just like you are.

I tell you, there are just hundreds of people right now. Everything you just, you want to, you're doing it, you're on track, you're saying, Lord, I just want to honor you. That's Nehemiah. So how, what was it? What was evident?

His discouragement was evident. Number one, through people. That's how his warfare was evident, came through people.

They got specific names here, Sanballat and Tobiah, and the list goes on. Can I just tell you something, folks? Let's just put it out here today. 9.9 times out of 10, someone is going to try and bring you down. Came through people. Number two, through major anger, anger. Bible says very clearly here in verse one that anger was involved. By the way, that old devil doesn't just kind of prefer us not to get close to the Lord. He's angry about it.

There's a difference, big difference. Anger, anger causes some very untoward behavior, doesn't it? You know, you can be displeased about something, but when you cross over that line of anger, it produces things that we don't even want to talk about. His discouragement was evident, number three, in personal ridicule. He jeered at the Jews. That little word there, to jeer, means he ridiculed them. And that's a personal attack.

Let me tell you, everybody watch me. You want to know if somebody is coming at you from the devil or that they've got good reason? If there's a personal attack involved in it, there it is. Someone tries to belittle you, attack you in your soul spirit. So this was the third area.

It was a personal ridicule. Number four, collective efforts. It was seen in collective efforts.

You know, verse two tells us, in the presence of his brothers in the army of Samaria. Okay, watch this folks. Spiritual warfare always looks for company. Okay, anyone waiting for a clue here? You're sitting here looking at your life.

You're wondering, what is this thing going on? The devil always looks for company. He's going to go out and find as many people as he can to join him. And he will do anything to make that happen. He understands the power of company.

And actually, we're going to see how that works here as you go through this. So his discouragement, you know, it was one thing if Sanballat was unhappy with something, but Sanballat was so angry, he ridiculed, he went after him. When that didn't work, he went out and stood there with all the troops. And he said, let me tell all of you something.

You need to hear what I think about Nehemiah. He tried to get the army to turn against him. He wanted everybody in on this. Satanic attacks will always harness the troops, always. They'll call meetings.

They'll call meetings. All right, number five, stinging sarcasm. I can't avoid that.

I mean, it's all over verse one, two, and so on. Stinging sarcasm. Can you imagine saying that? I can't believe you said this. Man, all we're hearing from you is that, what are these feeble Jews doing?

You really think you think you're going to be able to do that? You know, Tobiah, Tobiah was the lackluster lackey of Sanballat. I call him Tobiah the tick bite. You know what ticks do, don't you?

Ticks latch on to other people's bodies so that they can get a little drop of blood to live on. That's Tobiah. So, Tobiah attached himself and said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm just going to join in this, and he also said, you know what? I'm hearing all this sarcasm.

Let me try my own. Hey, Nehemiah, do you know what you're doing? I mean, look at them building there, these pathetic builders you've got.

Even if a fox were to jump onto that wall, it would crumble. So, what he did was he started even demeaning the quality of the work that they were doing. Oh, man, what do those builders think they're doing? And then one more, I just want to say to you, his discouragement was evident in relentless persistence. You know, when you get down to verse seven, but when Sanballat, relentless persistence. So, what happened was, you know, here comes all of this stuff, these people and this anger and this ridicule and this effort to get everybody to come and join in destroying what Nehemiah was doing and using sarcasm and doing everything they can, questioning the builders. So, Nehemiah and the people go and cry out to God and they plead with him. And verse seven says, it's like it didn't faze the spiritual warfare. It's like they just relentlessly pursued. This is the bottom line.

This is where I'm particularly interested. What did they do about this discouragement? Here it is. Number one, they cried. They cried out. Verse four said they cried out to the Lord. They cried out to the Lord.

They just cried out to God. Forgive the interruption. We'll be back with more of this great message, The Power of Overcoming Discouragement with Dr. Don Wilton in just a moment. But perhaps right now, the collective effort is our prayer along with your need.

What's going on in your life that you need a friend to pray for you? We have brothers and sisters taking this call right now. Your call at 866-899-WORD. I know that's helpful to remember it, but sometimes you just need the numbers.

Jot this down or store it in your cell. 866-899-9673 will connect you with one of us 24 hours a day who would be thrilled to pray with you and for you, to spend some time maybe digging God's Word to help the resource that you need put in your hands, whether it be part of Dr. Wilton's books library or part of his messages, or perhaps just knowing that someone is praying for you right now and watching God work. We believe that's our greatest resource, the power of prayer. That's 866-899-9673. Or if you'd rather, we'd love to meet with you keyboard to keyboard on our website, theencouragingword.org. That's theencouragingword.org.

Now back to today's message with Dr. Don Wilton. Number two, they handed over everything to the Lord. Verse four and five said they just handed it over to God.

It's a beautiful picture, isn't it? Now when they cried out to God, then they just handed everything over to Him. Number three, they followed their heart. Verse six, they followed their heart. What's your heart telling you?

So I'm going to keep using the same illustration. If your marriage is struggling, you know your desire, you know where you need to be and what God has put in your heart. Follow your heart.

Don't step back. These people knew God had called them, knew the walls were broken down, knew they were on assignment, knew what they had to do, and the Bible tells us right there in verse six that they followed their heart. They had a mind. Their mind was right to work, to get on with it.

So watch this. When you follow your heart, you're going to get on with it because that's what God put in your heart. See, what happens with discouragement? Discouragement causes you and me to want to stop. Obviously, I'm going to give up. If you've given up today in the name of the Lord Jesus, I want you to crank it up today.

Get back to where your heart is. Because I'm telling you, it's relentless and it'll wear you down. It's not easy. I mean, for some of you, you've been facing this not just for a week or two. Some of you, this has been going on for years, right? Years and years you've been facing something and it just tears you.

You're not even sleeping properly because it's such a deep burden in your heart. Number four, they prayed. That's what the Bible says in verse nine, they prayed. That's why we're calling ourselves. By the way, prayer and fasting are like Siamese twins. It's not one or the other, it's both. Bible tells us that when we do without a meal or we go for a period without eating, what we do in its place is we pray. Pray, read scripture, talk to God.

And here's what's going to happen. Those hunger pangs, which are so real. By the way, have you ever wondered why God picks on food? Why did he pick on food, man? Why not pick on something else? Why did he have to pick on food?

Why did God choose food, abstaining from food? Because if you've noticed every baby that's ever born, what's one of the first thing a baby does when it's born? And we say, oh, cutie, cutie, cutie, cutie.

You don't just leave that baby with its fist clenched up, looking all cute, kicking there away in that crib. You're not the baby's actually saying, give me something to eat. And if you notice when a baby's born, we spend most of every day saying, man, I've got to go feed the baby. Food is part of us from the time, all of us, and all of us go through that. We all love food, we all eat food. And by the way, we all need food. And what God is showing us when we stop eating just for a period of time, under control in a definitive way, and we don't follow the hunger pang, but we rather go to God, he fills that hunger pang with a spiritual food. Physical nourishment becomes replaced with spiritual nourishment. The best prayer meetings we will ever have in this church, you want me to tell you the best way for us to have a prayer meeting in this church?

Ask all of us to stop eating for a day. And then at the end of the day, come into the sanctuary and have a huge roast up here. I mean, the best roast, the best you've ever seen. I mean, just sitting there looking at us with potatoes, vegetables, gravy.

I mean, the whole nine yards. Just hanging there, just looking at me saying, please eat me. And then me get up here and say, folks, we are not going to eat that. We're going to just smell that while we continue to seek God's face. We will have the best prayer meeting we've ever had. Because what happens all of a sudden, your focus on God will become sharpened like you can't describe it, like you can't describe it. Your incredible physical desire to be filled and nourished and satisfied with the things that God has given to us.

There's nothing wrong with food. That's why we have it. It becomes replaced. And there is a refreshing that will come over you.

And the only way you will ever know that to be true is to try it. Otherwise you won't. If the Lord has stirred your heart and you'd like to pray with someone, speak with someone, we're here for you right now at 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673. Or meet us online at theencouragingword.org. Now more from Dr. Don. Are you ready to give your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ? I'm so happy to hear that. Why don't you pray this prayer with me today? Dear God, I know that you love me very, very much. And I know that the Lord Jesus Christ came and died on a cross so that I might be forgiven of my sin. Today I repent of my sin.

I confess my sin to you. And I invite you to come into my heart and into my life, I pray. In Jesus' name I pray. If you've prayed that prayer, let me be the first one to welcome you to the family of God.

This is wonderful. I hope that you know how much I'm going to be praying for you and how very important this is for me. Call us so that we can talk to you and connect you in the right place so you can begin this wonderful journey. And in just a moment I'm going to come back with a final word. If the Lord has changed your life, if you've given your heart to Christ, and has some free resources for you, call us and let us send them to you.

866-899-9673. We'd love to connect with you. I'm going to ask a penetrating question right now. What happens when you die?

Where exactly do you and I go? You know, over my many years of ministry and from so many of you, I get so many questions about life after death. All of us, people like you and me, are fascinated with the subject of life after death. That's why God led me to write the novel, The Absolute Certainty of Life After Death. This novel that I wrote was birthed out of my own personal, I think, near-death experience, and it just flowed from my heart. It's the story about two men in a real world, one died and the other man died.

One went to heaven, the other man did not. And it's based on what Jesus teaches us in his word. This book will change your view of heaven, and it will help you to understand the significance of what it means to be with Christ or to live separated from him forever. I want you to have a copy. Call the number on your screen and request your own personal copy of my novel, The Absolute Certainty of Life After Death. The encouraging word is a viewer and listener supported broadcast ministry, and your financial support helps us to reach just one more for Christ. And this book has been used to change lives all across America.

Call and get your copy now. Hello, my friends. You and I know so well that in today's world, social media is at the forefront of the social lifestyle. Everything you post on social media is so important, isn't it? People are snapping, tweeting, and posting more than ever, and we need your help. It's so vital to not only follow the encouraging word on our social platforms, but that you share our encouraging content with your friends and family.

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