Singing songs of worship is a powerful way to overcome the pull of discouragement. But what if you don't feel like singing today? On Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah shares the answers from the example of King David, whose response to discouragement can give you help and hope when life seems unfair. Listen now as David introduces the conclusion of his important message: the war zone of discouragement.
I'm sure all of you have gone through times of discouragement. It is impossible to be on this earth without experiencing that.
Some people are more prone to it than others. I've actually known some people that seem like they're on the positive edge of everything every day, and I've often wondered: Is that real, or do they just put that on for our benefit? What I do know is that there are times. When things happen, circumstances take place, and discouragement can set in.
Somebody said it's like pulling a wagon up a hill. When you get to the top, something happens. It goes back to the bottom, and you got to start all over again. That is a. Pretty apt experience for people who live life like I do, kind of like on the hairy edge of everything happening at once.
David was like that, and he went through a time of battle with his own soul when he was deceived and destroyed and inwardly by his own son Absalom. He talks about it in Psalm forty-two and forty-three, and that's what we're talking about on Turning Point. Say, listen, we have a cruise coming up in December. I just want to give you the dates: the twenty-six Sixth of December through January the second, we're going to the Caribbean aboard Holland America Zuiderdam, and it will be a great time of refreshment as we reflect upon the year that has passed and look forward to twenty twenty seven, which is just around the corner. If you haven't already checked into this, you can find out more about it at davidjeremiah dot org.
Here's part two of the war zone of discouragement. One of my old, old friends, who is now in heaven, is a man by the name of Warren Wiersbe. He was a marvelous pastor, wonderful writer. One of the books he wrote was called Walking with the Giants, and it contains short biographies of many people that you and I have heard about, famous Christians, what you might call giants of the faith. As he wrote the introduction, he said one surprising thing he discovered was a common thread running through their lives.
Many of them faced early years of nearly debilitating discouragement, but they kept at it and they faithfully sowed seeds despite the dark clouds that were over their heads. One of the men he mentioned was Charles Haddon Spurgeon, one of the great preachers of history.
Some say the greatest. Spurgeon suffered from prolonged bouts of depression, as well as anxiety about common problems. Spurgeon's psychological and physical ailments were so severe that he would often be confined to bed for weeks at a time.
However, he came to see these problems as part of God's work in his life. His sufferings enabled him to comfort and encourage others who were afflicted. He said he discovered that his periods of depression often came before a time when God blessed his ministry. And he made a statement I will never forget. Listen to this.
He said, "Depression became like a John the Baptist for me, just as John the Baptist came as the forerunner of Jesus." My depression came as a forerunner to God's blessing in my life. When I went through those times of discouragement and depression, and worked through them, I knew that on the other side, God was going to do something great in my life. David's experience, as he wrote these psalms, show us that hopelessness is not the end. Instead, it is often the soil in which hope begins. Hope is not the absence of difficulty; it is the certainty that God is present in the middle of difficulty.
Hope is most alive when everything seems hopeless. Therefore, our souls can weather seasons of discouragement. Here's the second paradox from David's pen: hope for the future is built on the past. For example. Psalm forty two four, when I remember these things, I pour out my soul within before.
I used to go with the multitudes. I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, and with the multitude that kept a pilgrim feast. David said, "I'm going through a really tough time right now, but when I think back, I remember." The joy I had with my brothers and sisters when I went to the house of God and we sang praises and we worshipped the Lord. Here's a similar sentiment from verse six: "O my God, my soul is cast down within me; therefore, I will remember you from the land of the Jordan and from the height of Hermon, from the hill Mizar." You know, feeling discouraged in the present, David chose to remember the past. He looked back at times of worship and joy in the presence of God.
The more he remembered, the more his thoughts turned to the faithfulness of God. I think it's an important thing to remember that when we're discouraged, we tend to forget what God has done for us in the past. The old hymn that goes like this: Count your blessings, name them one by one, and you will see what the Lord has done. We focus on the future when we get discouraged, and we lose sight of what He has done for us in the past. We forget His faithfulness.
It's a terrible condition for our souls because when we go through this, we're constantly thinking about what is uncertain and unknown. But the one thing we have that no one can take from us is what God has already done for us. We put that in the bank of our heart. And we remember it. That's reason why I recommend keeping a journal.
I remember when I first got sick years ago, somebody told me I should journal, and I didn't do it because I thought journals were for women and mystics, and I wasn't either one, so I didn't know if I could do a journal. But then I was reading a book by Gordon MacDonald, and in this book, he talked about journaling in his computer, and that sounded very masculine to me, so. I decided I would do that, and during my time with cancer, I journaled every day.
Now journals are important because when you write things down and you get them out of your system, you put them on paper, you can tell God what's really in your heart. That's really true. But there's another reason why journals are important. When you're going through a hard time here, you can go back and read your journal and remember what God did for you in the past. Let me tell you something.
God is still at home. You're the one that walked away. He hasn't left. He hasn't changed. He's the same God who helped you before.
Who's willing to help you now?
So when you go through discouragement, one of the things you can do is go back and remember the blessings of God. Maybe it was the blessing of your children being born, or finding the right person to be married to, or getting your house, or whatever it is that God has done for you. Remember His blessings when you're going through difficulty. You will be surprised. What that does for you, and there's another thought here that we should address.
David wrote, "Why are you cast down, O my soul?" Which suggests that David had chosen to be discouraged, and he was asking his soul, "Why have you cast yourself down?" That's important because it means we have a choice in where we focus. We can dwell on despair. Or we can direct our thoughts to hope. There was a time when David was on the run. He was leading a group of renegade soldiers.
They were out fighting their battles, and they had left their wives and children behind in a city called Ziklag. After being gone for a time, they came back, and as they walked over the hill and looked down, they saw that the city of Ziklag had been burned to the ground. It was gone. And all of the women and the children had been taken captive by the Amalekites.
Now David had a twofold problem. He not only was being pursued by the enemy, but now his own men were furious with him. They had followed him, and now their families were gone. Their homes were destroyed. Everything was gone.
And the Bible says they were so distressed they talked about killing David. And he had nowhere to go. If I had been in his place, I might have been tempted to run. But listen to what the Word of God says. David did.
First Samuel thirty verse six. David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. How many of you know the only person you have sometimes is yourself? Have you ever been sequestered in that place where? Nobody quite understands what you're experiencing.
You try to help them understand that they don't understand, and all of a sudden you look up and you say, "Lord, it's just me and you." David strengthened him, so I love what he did. I can almost picture it. David is overwhelmed. What am I going to do? My men are against me.
The enemy's against me, and instead of collapsing under the weight of it, he turns to the Lord. In my mind, I see him taking the scriptures and going off by himself, finding a quiet place and opening the Word of God. And as he reads, he begins to remember who God is. How many of you know? If God is on your team, you're never alone, and you're always in the majority.
You and God are greater than you and anyone else. And that's the lesson. When you get discouraged, when you feel overwhelmed, you don't just sit there and let it walk over you. You have to learn to encourage yourself in the Lord. One of the ways you do that is by going back through the scriptures and remembering the greatness of God.
I mentioned keeping a journal that can help. Go back and read what God has already done in your life and look at the ways He's been faithful. And there's not one of us here who doesn't have a good list. We count our blessings and we realize that we have so much to be thankful for. We look at what is happening around the world, think about being a Christian in some of the war-torn places of the world.
Here we are; we're not free of problems. Worshiping God and listening to His Word, we're blessed people.
Sometimes we just need somebody to poke us and remind us about that. Because we get caught up in our troubles, we get caught up in our discouragements, and that's the enemy doing that. He's wounding our soul with all of that, so that we can't be successful, and we can't be helpful, and we can't be of use to the Lord. When you're all down on yourself, you're never going to help anybody, and the enemy knows that. And the psalmist tells us, "Don't let it happen.
Don't let it happen." Remember, when things are hopeless, that's where hope thrives. First of all, hope is most alive when everything seems hopeless. Second, hope for the future is built on the past. And thirdly, hope sings when it feels like crying. David spent decades building Israel into a unified nation, only to see a coup threaten to destroy it all.
And the coup was led by his oldest son. I can't imagine the pain of that. And it was a direct consequence of what David had done wrong in Second Samuel 12. Many of those David considered close friends chose to reject him in favor of Absalom. All of which means David was soaked in grief and sadness and betrayal.
Even so, Psalm 42 and 43 contain a lot of singing, a lot of outbursts of praise. For example, listen to this. In this psalm, he's writing, "Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance." Psalm forty three four. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and on the harp I will praise You, O God, my God. And I love this one, Psalm forty two eight.
In the night, His song shall be with me. If you've never spent a night in the hospital, the hospital at night is not a very friendly place. You can't sleep, and when you finally sleep, they wake you up. The hospital seems so quiet, and if you're there by yourself, no one's there with you. You feel about as alone as you can ever feel, and you're probably there because something's wrong with you.
That doesn't help things at all. They say that depression. Feels heavier at night. I'm not sure that's always true. For me, the hardest moments usually are in the early morning when I wake up before the day begins and begin to think about the things that are going on that aren't right and that I can't control.
And if I'm not careful, I end up beginning the day with a list of problems instead of the praise of God. Maybe you felt that too. You go to bed with your problems, and lo and behold. You wake up and find they're still there. In that quiet moment, David said something remarkable.
He said God gave him a song in the dark. When you sing, something powerful happens. I know we're not all gifted singers, but we can all sing. You can't sing about the greatness of God in your heart and dwell on your own misery at the same time. It's not possible to do that.
When you begin to worship and praise God, you become deeply aware of His magnificent greatness. Suddenly, the things going on in your life start to pale in comparison to who God is. There is just something about music; it's melody, it's movement that captures our emotions and brings them back into the submission of God. When those in the Ancient communist movement wanted to teach their children things never to forget. They taught them songs.
They taught them music. They taught them the principles of destruction in the words and melodies of music. Most of us, if we're honest, remember some of the little songs we sang when we were kids. Music has a way of grabbing hold of your soul and not letting go. You say, "How can music help me?" You know, we're living in such a wonderful day.
You should find the worship songs that mean the most and build a playlist of them. Play it over and over again. Let the music of the wonderful Holy God wash over your soul when you're discouraged. It will do wonders for you, and you know that. And you can make music your best friend.
An old friend of mine named Jack Werthsen. Once gave me a book written by his son Don. Don was a student at Dallas Seminary during the time I was there, and he wrote a book called A Musician Looks at the Book of Psalms. It's a wonderful little book, and he was an exceptional composer, a gifted writer, and an incredible pianist. In the book, he approaches the psalms through the lens of a musician, and he offers a short devotional for each psalm, with reflections shaped by musical insight.
Here's what he wrote about Psalm 42: Dark moods can give way to positive praying. Like the psalmist, I can't allow my mind to camp on the negative ideas and feelings, but I can pray for God's light and truth to guide me. Let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell in the sanctuary, in the presence of my fellow believers. I will praise the Lord with acoustic and electric instruments, with sophisticated rhythms, with innovative harmonies and soaring melodies, reveling in the ineffable glory of God. In this way, I too will be able to experience His transforming power.
Wartson's words are simple. When you enter the sanctuary, surrounded by worship and music, and you allow yourself to be drawn into it, not just singing it absentmindedly like we tend to do, but you listen to the words, you sing the words, you internalize the words, something begins to change in your heart. Even the darkest mood starts to lift as you sense God at work for you. There's no question David was hurting as he dealt with these terrible circumstances, but still he sang. You know, during this time when I've been trying to recover from whatever it is I have.
I've had people say, "You know, Pastor, I know the energy and strength for doing what you do every weekend is challenging.
So, why don't you just stay in the green room and have someone come and get you when it's time for you to preach, and you can just rest back there, drink your coffee, and come out and preach?" And I said, "I couldn't do that. I wouldn't last two Sundays doing that, because you see, I need to worship to strengthen my soul before I come to the pulpit." I cannot remember a Sunday ever when there wasn't something in the worship service that so blessed my soul I wanted to get up and shout. And I think if we're honest, we all know what I'm saying is true. Worship does something to you; it does something to your soul, and it reminds you of the greatness of God. And when you're reminded of the greatness of God, your problems begin to shrink.
The God who we worship is able to do above and beyond all that we would ever ask or think, and there are no problems too big for Him. He is the God of the impossible, and we know this God in a personal way. It's amazing to me how wonderful the ministry of music is. You say, "But how can I sing when I don't feel like singing?" You know that's a lesson you learn more and more as you get older. Don't let how you feel determine what you do.
Don't let your body control who you are. When you don't feel like singing, that's the time when you need to push those notes out of your mouth like you didn't before. Maybe it doesn't feel the same, and maybe it's harder, and maybe you are a little bit flat, but it doesn't matter. Psalm forty three five says, "Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him." The help of my countenance and my God. God is the help of David's countenance.
In the words of Martin Lloyd Jones, when I really look at God, my face gets better. Hope in God, he says, and my countenance will change. Did you know that when you praise God, He changes the look on your face? He lifts your countenance. Have you ever seen someone so down and discouraged?
Your face is often a mirror of your soul. And the psalmist says, "When I get to praising God, He becomes the helper of my face." Oh, how wonderful that is! You know, there's so many blessings in the Bible that help us during times of discouragement, and as we're studying, we're not expecting to find them often. I have to tell you that the one place you don't expect ever to be blessed is through the inscription over a psalm. I want to give you a blessing to end this message from an inscription.
They were written to give us a little background to help us understand how the psalms were used in temple worship. As we've seen at the beginning of Psalm 42, before the psalm even starts, it says at the top of the psalm that it was given to the choir director to the musicians. To the sons of Korah. It was a masculine teaching psalm. I read that, and at first I just passed over it.
Then it hit me: the sons of Korah. Do you remember Korah from Numbers chapter sixteen? If Israel ever had a rebel, it was Korah. He stood up against Moses and Aaron. He defied God.
He challenged their leadership. He accused them of taking too much authority on themselves. He stirred up other people to follow him in the rebellion. And suddenly, Israel was in a moment of crisis. And if that rebellion had not been dealt with the way God dealt with it, would have changed everything.
But do you remember what happened? I do. Korah stood before God, and the ground opened up and swallowed him and all those who followed him. God doesn't mess around. There was no trial, nobody representing them.
They had declared who they were, and God had had enough of it. And the Bible says, when they stood before God, the ground opened up and they were swallowed into the earth, and that was it. And if you had made an observation about that, you would say that poor family, they're done. What kind of heritage is that going to be for their kids and their grandkids? They don't have a chance.
You would have thought what I would have thought. The children were spared, but you might have said there's not much hope for them. They're done. Look at their legacy. Look at what they came from—rebellion against God, judgment falling from heaven.
Those kids don't stand a chance. But God had other plans, and He took those children and raised them up into what we call the Korah family singers. He made them one of the great worshiping groups in Israel. They were entrusted with leading temple worship. When David wanted a psalm sung in the house of God, he gave it to the sons of Korah.
One of the ashes of rebellion stories is the story of God raising up a testimony of hope. Generation after generation, they stood in the presence of God in the sanctuary, blessing His name. And, ladies and gentlemen, that's the kind of God we serve. That's why we can hope in God. He's so fair and kind and generous, and so forgiving and so compassionate.
He put his hands around those children and protected them through the generations until we open our Bibles and find out. Thirdly, to worship in the temple, he can take what looks absolutely hopeless and turn it into something that brings glory to his name. I don't know what you're facing. I don't know what challenges are in your life right now. But if you feel hopeless, then you're a candidate for hope, like nobody else in this room.
If you want to encourage your heart in the Lord, start remembering what God has done for you. Remember what He's done. Remember what He has done for others, and stir your heart. And then find a psalm, find a bunch of them, and if you need to, grab a tambourine and start praising God. You will find hope.
Why are you cast down, O my soul? Say it out loud. Put your hope in God. You never have to be overwhelmingly discouraged when you see Almighty God in the midst of your situation. He changes everything, but you have to give Him permission.
You have to invite Him in. You have to give it over to Him. I hope you will do it. Amen.
Well, discouragement—we can check that one off our list. We've talked about that. We'll come back to it maybe a little bit later. But right now, we reflect upon what we've learned from the psalmist in these two psalms we've studied these last two days. Tomorrow on Monday, we're going to talk about temptation, and of course, we will turn to First Corinthians ten thirteen.
There's no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man, and we're going to talk about how that works. Satan, we are told, goes about seeking whom he may devour, and he's after you, and he's after me. He will use temptation of any kind to destroy our walk with the Lord. How we combat that, how we prepare for it, is of vital importance. All that tomorrow on Turning Point.
Hope you'll be with us then. Until then, this is David Jeremiah. Thank you so much for your part in Turning Point as we reach out with the Word of God. Today's message originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and Senior Pastor Dr. David Jeremiah.
Drop us a note to let us know how God is using this ministry in your life. Write to Turning Point, P.O. Box 3838, San Diego, California 92163. Visit our website at davidjeremiah.org/radio, or call 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's new book, *The Battle for Your Soul*, and learn to be victorious in spiritual warfare.
It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also download the free Turning Point mobile app for your smartphone or tablet, or search in your app store for Turning Point Ministries to access our content. Visit davidjeremiah.org/radio for details. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the battle for your soul on Turning Point with Dr.
David Jeremiah.
