Five Encouragers

The human life that you and I get to live is a real, real privilege. I don't know how much you appreciate every day waking up and being human with all the five senses and all the opportunities and all the potential that is built into the environment in which you and I live. It's just a life full of potential. It's so exciting to get up in the morning. Most mornings I can't stand to stay in bed. Five o'clock comes and I'm up. You've got to see what's going on. See the sunrise. Talk to God about things. Get the dog up. Feed the birds and see the wildlife come. It is just a tremendous opportunity to be a human being. And yet at the same time, human beings have trials and troubles. And there's none of us who don't. In fact, it's an integral part of being human that you and I will have trouble. Human life is full of trouble. It's fraught with trouble. It's going to come to you. It's going to come to me. And yet with all these potential blessings, there is also pain. And there are problems and trials that come along. Humans cannot get out of their frailties, out of their frustrations, out of their troubles by themselves. That's another unique thing about being human. You get into problems and you can't get out by yourself. So what is it about human life? People dream of escaping that particular situation, but it can't be done. It's part of being human. And if you don't think so, just live a long time. And sooner or later, your body will turn against you and bring you troubles. It's just going to happen. It's part of life. Humans then need a helper. Again, an integral part of human life is that every human being needs a helper. Even Jesus Christ needed helpers around him. It is an integral part, as I said, of being human. We need a helper. We need a comforter. We need an in-person who will encourage us. Encourage us not just mentally, but encourage in the sense of giving direction, solving the problems, encourage growth, development, motion away from where we are in that problem. Without a helper, people really are devoid of happiness. It's removed from them. It's taken away from them. They're robbed of that which they are in the pursuit of for their whole life. Sometimes, life is not worth living. There is so much trouble in it. This wonderful potential that we have when we're born becomes something the individual says, I don't want anymore. It's too problematic. In Ecclesiastes 4, verse 1, an individual who was wise and wealthy, who had it all, made an observation.

I saw the tears of the oppressed, and they have no comforter. Something is wrong when a human being does not have someone to encourage comfort to help them. Power was on the side of their oppressors, and they have no comforter. What's the status? I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. That's a very drudgy, melancholy look at this living opportunity that you and I have been given. People were never intended to live their lives alone. That was not an intent by God.

In the absence of other beings, humans will have problems that they cannot get out of.

In the absence of spiritual parents, humans are like orphans. Like an orphan child that grows up as abandoned and left to find their own way. Imagine a little child with no parents and no helper, no step-parents, no nobody who would adopt them, nobody who would take them, just a little child, growing up out there on the street or in the bush or wherever, and they're growing up and they're growing up. What kind of life would they have?

Well, it's essential that humans have spiritual parents with a capital P. When God created Adam and Eve, what happened? God was there. God didn't leave them alone. God was there with them. He was a spiritual parent. He was there to guide and lead, encourage and teach and comfort. They needed that. It was Adam and Eve that rejected their spiritual parents and humanity ever since has been alone. Alone without spiritual parents.

Now, to go along with the humans that God made, there is God who cares a lot about humans, who has power and wisdom and knowledge and gifts and really loves humans. What a match! I mean, wow! If you ever had a match for a human, it would be God, wouldn't it? It just doesn't get better than that.

And yet, do people want God? It says in Psalm 10, verses 17 and 18, You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted. You encourage them. See, man was not made to not be afflicted, but neither was he made not to have an encourager when he's afflicted. And God is there.

God hears the desire of the afflicted who seek him. You encourage them and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed in order that man who is of the earth may terrify no more. God is available. He's ready and willing and able to fill the need that you and I have.

God's children always need encouragement. It doesn't matter how big and important they get. The biggest important leader that God has still needs comfort, encouraging and help out of certain binds. All you have to do is read the Psalms. And there's King David, man after God's own heart, king of Israel, pouring out the need for God and the support of God.

In Deuteronomy 3, verse 28, we see an individual chosen to lead Israel into the Promised Land. Now, surely Joshua, who was strong, he was very principled, he had integrity, he had the backing of God, surely he was good to go. It's you and me up there in the camp of Israel. We're the one that needs encouraging. We've got all these sheep and animals. We've got to pack up again and go to this scary country.

But surely Joshua with that burning cloud and fire, he's ready to go, right? Well, notice what God said. I'm going to read this from the New International Version. But commission Joshua and encourage and strengthen him. For he will lead this people.

That says it all right there. Encourage and strengthen him, for he's going to lead this people. He's going to lead them across and cause them to inherit the land that you will see. And what does he need more than anything? Encouragement. And what did God tell him? Be strong and have good courage. Above all, have courage. Be courageous. Don't fear. Today I'd like to examine five encouragers. Five encouragers. These are different entities that encourage the development of your life and mine. No one can succeed without four of these. You will fail with one of them. You are one of them. So what are the five? Which ones do we need? And what do we not need? This topic, I think, is very relevant to us. Because as was said in the sermon at today, there are times in our life, in the future, in the past and now, that sometimes are very troublesome. And at that point in time, we need encouragement. And also we need to be encouragement. The first encourager, I'll put in sort of a chronological order. The first encourager is, or are, our physical parents. Now hopefully when you were born, you had physical parents who raised you. They may not have been your biological father and mother, but nevertheless, somebody parented you. The dictionary definition of parenting, I find interesting, is to act as a parent to raise and nurture to parent children with both love and discipline.

So that is what a parent is. That's encouraging development and growth through love and discipline.

We see in Proverbs chapter 31 verses 27 and 28, one of the few examples of a positive parent in the Bible, and this one isn't exactly a direct statement. You know, when you look in the Bible, you think, well, let's turn to the Scriptures about the great parents. Those are really good examples. You know, there just aren't many places to turn. You can turn to some that say parents ought to be good parents, and they ought to quit being bad parents, but there's not too many places you can turn to find the good parents. Here in Proverbs 31, we only see an allusion to what a good parent does.

Not directly stated, but we can see something here in verse 27, in that the woman who is very virtuous watches over the ways of her household, and in verse 28, her children rise up and call her blessed.

She's watching, she's caring, she's concerned, and she's involved, and the result of that is her children rise up and say, you're filling my needs. You're taking care of me. You're comforting, you're encouraging, you're helping, and you are what I need.

We find in Ephesians 6 that fathers are not to discourage, which is the opposite of encourage.

Ephesians 6, verse 1, says, children obey your parents, and the Lord, for this is right.

In verse 4, it says, fathers do not provoke your children to anger.

Another place, do not discourage them, provoke them to anger, but bring them up or encourage them in the training and admonition of the Lord.

We are to be there for our children, to encourage.

In Matthew 19 and verse 14, Jesus accepted the little children who were brought to him, and he said, let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them, for such is the kingdom of heaven, and he laid his hands on them and departed from there.

God certainly is one who wants children to be protected and cared for.

In 2 Timothy 3 and verse 15, one last example, 2 Timothy 3 and verse 15, it simply says here, and that from childhood you, Timothy, have known the holy scriptures.

How did he know the holy scriptures from childhood? Somebody taught him.

Now, there are the Bible's strong examples that come to my mind of parenting.

And again, they aren't just really upfront and bold, but at the same time, they do show that our first encourager, our parents, are very, very important.

The second encourager that comes to us, chronologically, is Satan. Satan and those of his mindset who encourage us to do evil.

It didn't take long for Adam and Eve to receive encouragement of a different kind, and they followed that encouragement.

Encouragement comes in two forms, obey God or sin. Disobey God.

And the mentality of Satan begins discouraging us during our youth.

It doesn't take long for those precious little babies to hit the terrible twos, and there's something else going on there.

And they're being encouraged to be very, very selfish and unthoughtful and rebellious, and head down a track and a path which will ruin their lives.

Certainly shorten their lives and remove some of the blessings that could come to them if they continue on that path.

Ephesians 2, verse 2, tells us, There is a way in which you and I also walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. And we picked that up early.

The spirit which now works in the sons of disobedience.

Verse 3, among which, We also once conducted ourselves in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as others. So this is the second encouragement that comes to us, and it spreads.

It's not just a personal thing that comes in, sort of from the wavelength of the mindset of Satan. It spreads among us as human beings. Psalm chapter 64, verse 5, David says, They encourage each other in evil plans. They talk about hiding their snares. That's encouragement. The kids come into the neighborhood, and pretty soon, your kids, my kids, are thinking like those kids. And next thing you know, there's gang graffiti in the neighborhood. Where is that coming from? It's coming from encouragement. Encouragement of a wrong kind. Your kids come into the neighborhood. Other people, maybe parents, other teens, see the example, and they say, Hmm, my kid, your kid. I want my kid to be like your kid. So then they start trying to encourage their kids to be more like you. So you can go either way. The easiest way to go is the selfish way. That's sort of the course of the world, the river that flows, the downhill slide. In the church, we are warned that there are people who come in to encourage us out of the church. In 2 Peter 2 and verse 14, there are spots and blemishes. In verse 13, they are carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you. So there's going to be encouragement, both positive and negative, within the church. Having eyes full of adultery, or literally that word means the eyes full of an adulterous, meaning it's wanting something for self. It's wanting to get something for oneself. And it's very appealing. They're going to come with a very appealing kind of an eyes of one who is trying to cause somebody to be drawn into something. They cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. So again, the thing here is breaking the law of God. It's for lawlessness. It's for breaking God's law and enticing people, encouraging people, as it were, to do something wrong. And that is what is said here in the church. They have forsaken the right way. They've gone astray. Verse 17, these are wells without water. Verse 18, notice, here's how they encourage. When they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh. They encourage by telling me that myself and me and my ego and my human nature and my vanity and my whatever, whatever, this is going to work. This is going to feel good.

And so they're encouraging the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in sin. And they are promising them liberty.

Proverbs cites countless warnings about who you hang out with, who you befriend, of the warnings of physical and spiritual mixing, covenant breaking.

We have to be careful of that and not to be encouraged to do something like that. That's why the Bible says, have nothing to do with them. Just have nothing to do with them.

Okay, let's now look at the third encourager chronologically. We had our parents. They did a good job, even if you didn't like the way they did it. They still did a lot of work on your behalf. And then comes Satan. And we like that. We thought that was pretty good until the third encourager came along. And that's God's calling and His drawing. That's an encouragement. You know, a calling or the drawing that we have is an encouragement to follow Me, God says. An encouragement to come a different way, to have eyes open and start a new direction. This calling and drawing comes via the Word of God. We're told in the Bible it comes through His teaching, through the ministry. It comes from us hearing and understanding, having our eyes and ears opened to the truth, and then being encouraged to leave sin behind and repent of that and become more like God.

Man's first spiritual parent was God. He created us. He created Earth's inhabitable environments for us. This is the area in which we are to live and spend a life and experience many things and be tested and perfected. This is our training grounds. He's given us food and lodging, necessities and healing and growth and beauty and inspiration.

But we got kidnapped. We did. We were children, but we got kidnapped. Somebody came and took us while we weren't looking and kidnapped us. We grew up with a kidnapper. That's what happened, whether you realize it or not. You got kidnapped right out of your own parent's house when you were little, and you didn't even know the kidnapper. You didn't even realize you were kidnapped because you grew up in this kind of different family and then found out about it. We got raised by the enemy. Jesus came along and told us one day, By the way, you're not part of that family. You weren't even adopted into that family. You got kidnapped.

He says in John 844, You are of your father, the devil. And he's a fake father, and the desires of your father you want to do. And when he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, and he's the father of it. And I've come to save you. I've come to save you from this deceiver. I've come to save you from this kidnapper who got you.

And I want to bring you back. I want to restore you. I'm going to die so that you can be healed back to your original real family. What do we think about that? He came to save us from the devil, from his ways, and from his punishment. But we have to want to be saved. You know, not everybody who comes and gets rescued from a kidnapper wants to be saved.

Some of you are old enough to remember Patty Hearst. Remember the heiress of the Hearst printing empire in California? Got kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, I think it was, SLA. And finally, they came in there to save her. She didn't want to be saved. She was carrying guns and carrying out robberies, and she was just fine, thank you very much.

You have to want to be saved. Otherwise, the Savior is not going to be able to do a whole lot. The problem is, our human nature doesn't want to be saved. I don't want to really be saved out of everything, Paul says. That which I should want to be saved out of, I don't always want to be saved out of.

And that's the way it is with our human nature.

Do you want to repent? Do you want to have God show you your sins? Not really. How many times do they say, Well, I'm afraid to ask God to show me my sins. I just really don't want him to get mad at me, and at the same time, I don't really want to leave him behind, maybe. Don't really want to know what those things are, maybe.

Do we want to be saved?

1 John.

Well, let's just a second.

In verse 45, Jesus said, Because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. So he came, he identified the Father, but we said, No, no, no, no, no, I don't agree with you there. I don't agree. I don't want to get rid of who I am and what I am, etc. So now we go to 1 John chapter 3, in the first two verses.

Behold, what manner of love the Father. Now he comes to us as a different Father. We just saw your Father the Devil.

Now we have a manner of love that God the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called Children of God. And many people who receive the call and become Children of God say, What are you talking about? We can't be the Children of God. I reject that.

That's not something the Bible really talks about. That's just an analogy.

Analgenic or something like that. I don't know what the word would be. But it's just an analogy. So it's kind of a rejected thing. But no, here he comes along and says, I want you to be my children. Therefore the world does not know us because it did not know Him.

Beloved, now we are Children of God. We are being stitched into that family. God calls us His sons and daughters. It has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, and we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies Himself. We've got to get rid of the old God, the old nature, the old mentality.

This third encourager is very powerful when it comes to us, but not everybody accepts it for whatever reasons.

In Romans 8, 14, we see God's intent and what He is trying to do to us by this encouragement to follow Him.

Beginning in verse 13, It says, For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. He's encouraging us to take in His spiritual mindset and live, for as many as are led by the Spirit of God. Not those who have the Spirit of God. Many as are led by the Spirit of God. These are sons of God. These are ones who are becoming part of the family of God. These are engendered from a new Father from above. They're taking on a new mentality of a new Father. That's where He is going. So our calling is an opportunity to have a spiritual parent, a helper, an encourager, one of Godliness. And we have to respond with desire. We have to respond with loving God with all our heart, soul, and might. Otherwise, we say, no thanks. That's really what we're saying. That's why He says to us in 2 Corinthians 6 and verse 17, Therefore come out from among them, and be you separate, says the Lord. And I will be a Father to you, and you shall be the sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty. That's the direction, that's the calling. Do we want that? Do we want to do that?

In Hebrews 12 and verse 5, God speaks to us as children. Hebrews 12 and verse 5.

Have you forgotten the exhortation? This word, exhortation, means encouragement. If you read it in the New International Version, it reads encouragement. Have you not forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons? My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those He loves. Not just the Laodicean era, everybody He loves. Not just the people who are bad, not just those who are making mistakes. He says He disciplines everyone He loves, and punishes everyone He accepts as a son. What does that mean? That's encouragement. Remember when your kids are little and they hit the terrible twos, and you pull out the board of encouragement? It's not the mental encouragement of, like, have a nice day. It's the encouragement to take a different path. And God is encouraging us as sons. And I remember that little board of encouragement grew larger as I grew larger, and it really needed to, because I needed encouragement. And I still need encouragement. Sometimes God has to get a big board and whop me upside the head to get me to see what I need to see. And that's a good thing. That's a really good thing. God treats us as sons and daughters if we are responding and if we want to be that. I pray now and ask God, you just show me anything and everything that's wrong with me any time you want. Don't hold back, because I want to know. God is loving and patient, and He's gracious, and He's kind, and He's thoughtful, and He's merciful. He's never walloped me. He's never just come out of the blue, okay, you want that? Fine, here you go.

You know, the teachers at school when I was growing up, in the church school, made you say, Thank you, sir, may I have some more? When they were finished clobbering you with that paddle. You had to say that. It went through various things when I was growing up. But at one point, that's what you had to say. Thank you, sir, may I have some more? Well, yes, you may. It was often the answer. But, you know, God is not like that. He's not like that. He wants to encourage us. He wants to keep us out of problems. We can't go through this life without trouble, and we then need an encourager to help us out of our trouble. If you think you can go through life not asking God for help out of your trouble, you're just going to get stuck in your trouble. What kind of life is that? It's no life at all. In verse 7, it says, Endure hardship as discipline. God is treating you as sons. My father was a disciplinarian. He was a disciplining man. I didn't always feel real warm and fuzzy towards just the disciplined side of my father. But every year he gets a Father's Day card from his son John, and I thank him for disciplining me and correcting me and teaching me and training me. Because, you know what? I've had a pretty good life, thanks to a father who cared enough to guide and struck, to teach, to spank, to punish, to limit, to encourage, to praise, to do all the things that a parent needs to do. For a rambunctious kind of son who's going through life and bouncing off the sides of the walls and needs to be going down the middle of the room. And then when you get out of the building, you're pretty much lined out for life. It's a good thing. It's really a good thing. And I trust that God will do the same and not allow me or you to go wandering off like a sheep without a shepherd. In 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 16, we find that our God is one who is able to encourage us in this calling, in this drawing that we have, the drawing that we're given. And he says to the church at Thessalonica, May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, there's the Godhead, who loved us and by His graciousness gave us eternal encouragement and good hope. Now those aren't just little things to put yourself to bed with at night. Just some nice adjectives to sort of be inspiring. No, those are realities. Real encouragement and good hope. The encouragement is the direction and the encouragement to get up, keep walking, keep going, endure the end, and arrive at that wonderful destination. May He encourage your hearts and strengthen you, notice, in every good deed and word. It's not in every emotion and good feeling and little cutesy phrases on your refrigerator door. Now it is encourage you and strengthen you in every good deed, good works, and word that we speak so that we become like God, seeking the kingdom and His righteousness and performing that. May God do that for you as He calls us and then as He leads us from that calling.

So God's calling is encourager number three. It begins with our being taught as spiritual children. Romans 10 verse 14 says, How shall they call on God, in whom they have not believed? How shall they believe in Him, of whom they have not heard?

And how shall they hear without a preacher? The calling of God comes from God. It comes through His word. It comes through the preachers and the teachers of the word and those who work directly with those things for God.

All of this is a combined encourager of our calling. Notice how this relies on the Word of God, not on the individual, but on the Word of God. It's still coming from God. It's the teaching and the calling and the motivation from God. It says in Titus chapter 1 verse 9, He the minister must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught. As it has been taught. This message. You've got to hold to the trustworthy message as it has been taught. This is Paul talking. He's an apostle. He's one who wrote much of the New Testament.

And we've got to be faithful to this Word as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it. What is the parole of minister? To be some kind of cool guy with extra wisdom, and he's really sharp, and he went to some college, and therefore he knows more than everybody else. That's not what we read. It's one who will teach what the Bible taught, and one who will encourage others by sound doctrine.

Jesus Christ laid out what the laws were. The apostles in the New Testament defined those laws and the keeping of those laws in something called doctrine. It's not their doctrine. It's Christ's teaching that they stated as doctrine. And so, myself and other ministers merely speak the truth that the Bible teaches as the doctrines that were there, and then we encourage each other. Follow it! Follow it! That's what it's about. Romans 15, 4, 5. Let's notice here.

Romans 15, 4. We'll begin in verse 4. For whatever things were written before were written for our learning. You can see how God works through His Word. Jesus Christ, this is the logo. Part of it was written down. These things were written for our learning, that we, through the perseverance and comfort of the Scriptures.

There's the comfort. There's the encouragement of the Scriptures might have hope. It all goes back to God. Not to any human being. It all goes back to God. He is the one who encourages us through His calling, through His teaching. Verse 5, May the God of perseverance and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another according to Christ Jesus.

That you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Come on into that family. Express the appreciation for the mindset, for the family, for the things it offers you and me. If you feel that way, then you get to go to step four and have the fourth encourager, which is the Holy Spirit. After baptism, God in you through the Holy Spirit is something that's more profound than what you expect.

The Holy Spirit doesn't just, oh, it's there and it's nice and it encourages me and it'll get me into the kingdom of God. That's kind of typically what we think the Holy Spirit does. But Jesus Christ said it does a whole lot more than that. Something a lot more, shall we say, valuable, pertinent, required than that. Let's talk about the Holy Spirit for a moment. In John 14 and verse 16, Jesus introduces the Holy Spirit coming into us. And he says here, John 14 verse 16 from the New King James Version, And I will pray to the Father, and He will give you another paracletos.

It's going to give you a paracletos, is the word in the Greek. What is a paracletos? Well, if you look at several of the translations that use this word or translate it into English, you'll find that they use helper, comforter, advocate, and encourager. God is going to give you a helper, a comforter, an advocate, and a counselor, another translation uses, that it, the Holy Spirit, may abide with you forever. That thing that's lacking, that thing that's missing, that thing that's going to help us get out of our problem, is going to abide in us forever.

Imagine that. A human being that's good to go. May not have another human being on earth. We were not made to dwell alone, but we have the comforter, God's Holy Spirit, the encourager, we have this counselor within us. It's God in you. What a match that is. It's called the Spirit of Truth, which the world cannot receive, Jesus said, because it never sees it, nor hears it, knows it, but you know it, for it dwells with you, and once you're baptized, will be in you.

Helper, comforter, advocate, counselor, all definitions of the Greek word paracletos. If we look at this word a little more carefully, about the Spirit that God's going to put in us, there's something about it that's much more important about just comforting or encouraging, or even directing our steps. It has powerful significance. One of the translations, the King James says comforter, New Revised Standard says advocate, New International version says counselor.

If you look this up in the Strongs, it says an intercessor, an advocate, or a comforter. Those aren't words we typically use a lot. Thayer says, in the whitest sense, a helper, an aider, an assistant.

The word counselor actually is the accurate term here. In this application, where Jesus Christ is talking, He's not talking about just an encourager or a comforter. He's not talking about a helper. He's actually talking about an attorney, an attorney-at-law, a counselor, which is what the term here refers to. This word can be used in different contexts, but Jesus here uses it in the context of an attorney-at-law. You're going to be sent an attorney. The dictionary definition of counselor is a lawyer, especially a trial lawyer, a counselor-at-law. We might think, well, what's he talking about? Something's going on. I just want a comforter. I just want an encourager. What do I need with an attorney? Well, actually, brethren, we need an attorney. Really bad. Big time. We need him every day, all day long, it turns out, because there's a lot going on that we're not always aware of. This is what Jesus Christ is sending us, somebody to help us. Why do we need a counselor in the attorney sense? It's because of the context of what he's saying here is legal matters coming before the Supreme Court of Heaven. You and I go on trial several times a day in heaven at the throne of God. And oven by ourselves, we are in a pickle. Remember the problems that we get into in life? Remember the problems that we can't work our way out of? Well, here's the problem of problems. At the throne of God, you have just been convicted for a crime requiring your death. Now that's a problem. How often does that happen? Every time you sin, every time you think of selfish thought, every time you transgress loving God first and your neighbor is yourself. You come before the throne of heaven and you're ready for a conviction. And you don't stand a chance, and neither do I. We just don't stand a chance. But Jesus said, I'm going to send an attorney. He says here, essentially, verse 7, Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the counselor will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send it to you, and when it is come, it will, notice, convict the world of sin. This is the context. It's a court of law. It's a conviction process. Those who don't have a counselor, an advocate, get convicted of sin, going on, and of judgment. The Holy Spirit is there as your attorney, your counselor, either to convict you or to defend you and get you off. To the disobedient, the Holy Spirit comes to convict the world of being sinful. The trial will come later. The trial actually comes in Revelation 21.11. Let's go see that trial. The trial is postponed. The conviction is held until such time as the individuals get their own lawyers, or their own lawyer, as it were. Revelation 21.11, Then I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away.

So here is a throne, and I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and the books were open. We understand that that's the books of the Bible, which the world is blind to now. And another book was open, which is the Book of Life. Those who have been baptized have their names written in the Book of Life. But the world doesn't. It's not open to them right now. But it will be. And the dead were judged according to their works by the things which were written in the books. That's their Judgment Day. That's their Judgment Time. When they come up in the Second Resurrection, live a second time, understand this, and are judged by how they live God's Word. But you and I have that going on right now. And to the obedient now, the Holy Spirit comes to defend, or to obtain a release from the penalty of death.

The Holy Spirit is in us, and it's also our Advocate at the throne of God to get us a release from the penalty of sin, which is eternal death. In 1 John 1 and verse 7, it says, But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. The penalty of sin gets removed by the Advocate, by this counselor, by the One that's also encouraging us to walk the right way, to think godly thoughts, to expose carnal nature, and put away sin.

But verse 9 says, So it comes up. John Elliott, you have sinned, you are guilty of death. Yes, I am. Yes, I have. However, sin is erased.

Well, that's not fair, somebody would say. Well, too bad. He's not guilty of it because He repented of it, and Jesus Christ took it on Himself. Therefore, you got the wrong guy, and Jesus Christ already died. So, free to go. See how that works? That's pretty good. But what if, John Elliott, you are convicted of sin? Yeah, but I kind of like that one.

Not good. You're going down. Hammer falls. Because the Holy Spirit is also there to convict sinners of sin. We have to be obedient.

In verse 8, it says, if we say we have no sin, if we want to say, oh, I don't want to know about my sin, I'm pretty good. You know, that God, don't correct me. I don't really want to know. Maybe I don't really see any sin, so I think I'm okay. So don't show me anything. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

And then is when the Holy Spirit will convict us. When we do not repent of sin, it becomes an unpardonable sin. In other words, it's not pardoned. We don't have an advocate. Jesus Christ is not taking on a sin we don't repent of, and therefore that becomes an unpardonable sin. One that we are fully aware of and one that we say, I'm keeping that one. I like to be selfish. I like to be vain. I like to have myself elevated. I like lust. I like greed. Whatever.

I'm keeping that one. That one can't stay and have forgiveness of sin.

A friend of mine at the home office, who is a very technical electronic individual, sent me these thoughts. I'll just share them with you. He said, it struck me that the Holy Spirit is always flowing. He works in the field of electrons, of electronics, and things flow through an electron.

I love the way his mind works. He says, the Holy Spirit is always flowing as an advocate, as a comforter, an encourager, and a counselor on our behalf. It's always there. It's always flowing. In other words, the Holy Spirit is constantly flowing in a positive current from God. In the world of electrons, you have positive charges and negative charges.

We're pretty familiar with this. You've got your battery cables, red and black, positive and negative. Now, as long as that stuff's flowing through your car, everything works great, your radio's on, the lights work and everything. We'll just go take those terminals and touch them together. Now, they're short out the circuit. Or go to your television set, like I did one time when I was learning electronics, and touch the base of a capacitor with 25,000 volts in it, which slammed me to the floor and put two holes through the finger I touched those two terminals with.

And you find there's resistance. And electrons are no longer flowing just right. And battery terminals tend to spark and arc, and things start smoking. I remember wiring up some stuff when I was young with my wife with anything that looked sort of like an RV or could be made into an RV. That's me. And I wired stuff up, and we were heading down the road and smelled smoke. And sure enough, some of the wires I put back through a wall had had a short in it, and it was getting hot.

And then it started to burn. And next thing you knew, I grabbed it to pull on it, and the wires were red hot. Now I burned my hand. And there was a short back of the battery. And things went downhill real fast for a while. But you see, whenever that current gets interrupted, bad things happen. And so I like what he's saying. He says, in other words, the Holy Spirit is constantly flowing in a positive current from God through His people.

If we get in harmony with that current, we will find ourselves in harmony with what is always at work. And it's a beautiful thing. If we're in harmony with the current, if we're in harmony with the Spirit, we're in harmony with the Advocate, the Counselor, the Encourager, the Director. Good things happen. This is one very important reason that God wants us to pray, to praise, and give thanks. All of these flow in the same current with the Holy Spirit. I thought his comment there was very encouraging. That was Clay Thornton, who is the editor of Beyond Today program.

Now we come to the fifth encourager. The fifth encourager is you. Yes, we often think, well, I need encouragement. I need help. I need direction. I, I, I. But wait a minute. We're to love others as much as we love ourselves.

And God didn't just call us to be sort of little vacuum cleaners that take and get encouraged. We are to be encouragers of others. We are each encouragers, encouragers of either doing good or doing evil. Hmm. Or both. You know, that's the thing. It's not always so cut and dried, is it? It's not always so black and white. That person's a, you know, a encourager of evil.

And that one's encourager of good. Well, it depends on the day. It depends on the situation. It depends on the amount of carnality or the circumstances at any given time. That's why our light and our example needs to be bright at all times. That's why the tree needs to have good fruit on it. The fifth encourager is you. And you do encourage other people. I know I've encouraged people in various ways through my lifetime. My friends when I was a kid, you know, do some pranks and things that were kind of funny and fun, but, nah, they weren't really loving. And sometimes I'll reflect on some of the things that I sort of promote or get involved with and think, hmm, is this always just right?

Am I doing this right with a good purpose? And then you find, you know, I'm not. Not all of it is good. Some of this needs to be adjusted. Some of this is fat on the bone and needs to be cut off. It needs to be trimmed, adjusted, tweaked. I hope you find the same thing, because we need to be positive encouragers. Like Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 5.11, Therefore encourage one another and build each other up. It's one good direction. Encourage one another and build each other up.

It should be encouragement for the good. Building one another up. In Acts 14, verse 22, there are a lot of problems that happen in the church. And if you think that you're going to run off and find a church, a version of God's church, to avoid problems, well, how would you have liked to have been in the New Testament church?

Just read the book of Acts and look at all the problems that people went through. That's part of life. That's part of being in the body of Christ. And here in the 14th chapter of Acts, there were problems coming down on the people and on the ministry at that time. And when we come down to verse 22, let me read this from the New International Version. It says, You see, disciples of God, called by God, it turns out they need to be strengthened. And encouraging them to remain true to the faith.

That's an integral part of the church, being in the church, having God's Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ said, we need to be encouraged to endure to the end. He encourages us throughout the Bible to do what's right, no matter what.

In many instances, such as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, in your darkest hour, with the fiery furnace in front of you, do what's right and stick with it. We need, then, to encourage disciples, encourage them to remain true to the faith.

Paul said, we must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God, they said. That's encouraging, you know? What's with the hardships? What's with the troubles in life? What's with the problems? What's with the politics? What's with the persecution? What's with the false prophets? Encouraging them that hardship is part of life. Hardship is part of life. Chapter 20, verse 1. Here they had a lot of problems. And verse 1 of chapter 20, after the uproar had ceased. So here you have an uproar, and feelings and emotions are hot, and the courts were threatening people. And you had this whole uproar, and it's the big event.

It's hard to go back there. Just imagine a scenario that engulfs the church, and it is the uproar of a lifetime, but somehow with God's help you get through it. And after the uproar had ended, what happens? We see here Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them, because it can be discouraging to go through various things, Paul needed to encourage them, and then said goodbye and set out for Macedonia. And then he traveled through that area, speaking many words of encouragement to the people. We need to encourage one another. It's not just God, through the Holy Spirit, through His word that is encouragement.

Sometimes it's personal encouragement. Sometimes there counsel needs to take place. Sometimes you need to call your pastor and say, I need to talk to you. I need some encouragement here about what to do, what to say, which way to go, what to think. I'm in that problem. Sometimes your pastor has to call on another minister and say, hey, you know, sometimes I need a little encouragement here. We all need it.

Barnabas in the Bible is probably not an individual that jumps out at you. We always think, well, he and Paul didn't get along, and I like Paul, so Barnabas probably wasn't quite as good. So what about Barnabas?

You know there was no Barnabas?

There was nobody named Barnabas, not that I know of.

How many of you know Joseph from the island of Cyprus? Anybody hear about him?

Well, Joseph from the island of Cyprus, he's actually the guy, you see? He's actually the guy. Let's notice this from Scripture. Because I think that's important. In Acts 4, verse 36, we find the real guy here.

Acts 4, verse 36, Joseph, it begins, Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas, they are the ones that gave him the nickname. That's not his name. He's Joseph. From Cyprus, he's a Levite. What did they name him then? Well, the Bible says, they called him Barnabas, which means son of encouragement.

This guy was so encouraging, encouraging emotionally, but also encouraging people to do the right thing that they named him son of encouragement.

Wow! What a powerful individual! What a powerful gift! What a trait! That that becomes his nickname.

I'd like to give you two points for becoming a more effective encourager. I'd like to begin with another individual from the home office who wrote in the United News some time ago in a little article. She said, at times I feel like a misfit, especially if I've goofed up. During my times of deepest discouragement, I've asked God to encourage me or to send an encourager. Then someone would come along and lift my spirits and help me know that I belong to God and that God has a purpose for me.

We need to be there for each other.

Encouragement is about the most important thing you can do to a person who is in trouble, who may feel defeated, dejected, or just in trouble and needs somebody to lead them, give them some direction, encourage them to take another path.

The Bible encourages us to do that also.

I think two simple points to be a better encourager. One is be alert to people and their needs. If we're going to love others as ourselves, it means we have to be alert. We have to know people. We have to care. We have to spend time getting to know them. It's not just about them knowing us. It's about us also taking the time to get to know people and their needs. At the senior Bible study here recently, I asked the question, how can you find an individual who needs encouragement? What are some of the symptoms? Some of the things that brought up? A person who is alone. A person who is absent. Those are the ones we don't see. A person who is new. A person who is discouraged. One who is neglected. Or one who is strayed from the path.

The first thing is to recognize an individual who needs encouragement. The second is to then be an encourager. Be an encourager. Take time to listen. Take time to empathize and to steer. All these things are part of being an encourager.

We need to make an appointment to find our spiritual orphans who are in need. Those who don't have a connection or are missing a connection with God, or the connection gets interrupted, or they don't have brothers and sisters physically in the church or family in the church.

There's kind of a loneliness there. People need people.

James 1, 27 says, religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this. It's to look after orphans and widows in their distress. Physical? Spiritual? How many of you have relatives who are not in the church? Parents not in the church. Brothers and sisters not in the church?

You're missing family, aren't you? And Jesus said, whoever is missing family now in this lifetime, Father, sisters, mothers, brothers, I'll provide a hundredfold for you now. That's you and me. We need to be there for each other. So we need to be family to one another, be alert, and also be encouraging one another. Encouraging each other to go forward in obedience to God.

It's a gift and a role that each of us needs to be for one another.

That was the theme of the Women's Weekend, a gift of godly friendship, right? I see Mary and Sylvia there right in line, two of the people very involved in that.

And that's really what it is. It's a gift, the gift of being for one another. In Hebrews 3, verse 13, Paul says, But encourage one another daily. Encourage one another daily.

What are we supposed to encourage one another in? Again, it could just be, oh, I'm here to encourage you. Here's a little encouragement. Got the little smiley, or I'll stick it on your arm. Be encouraged. But what's he saying? What's he saying? And I'm not so hard and so testosterone-oriented that I have no feelings. But at the same time, those little smelly stickers aren't going to get us into the kingdom. They can be really encouraging, though. It's nothing like getting an encouraging card when you're down or a hug or whatever.

And I don't disavow that those aren't really meaningful. But, look at what he's saying. Encourage one another daily so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.

Sin comes along and it's deceitful, and next thing you know, we're suckered into something that's not right. And we need to encourage one another. Get back on the track, don't we? That's really the bottom line of it.

We have come to share in Christ, if we hold firmly to the end, the confidence we had at the first. And we've got to encourage one another in that. You'll know Hebrews 10, verse 24 and 25. And we see how this goes together right here with our church service. Hebrews 10, beginning in verse 24. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works.

We need to encourage one another.

I'm going to read the next verse, verse 25, from the New International Version.

Let us not give up meeting together. As if we chose to do that. I don't like the way that's worded. But let us not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. The Sabbath is a festival or a holy assembly. A convocation means an assembly. So this is something God has chosen, not that we decided to assemble. Let us not give up assembling together, as some are in the habit of doing. But let us encourage one another, and all the more so, as you see the day approaching.

So brethren, in conclusion, humans are not accidental tourists wandering around this earth, enjoying and seeing and sightseeing and having some wanderlust. The problems we face here are also not accidental. They are part and parcel of life. Challenges come to us. They propel us. They challenge us. They test us. To seek solutions. To find solutions. Cause and effect. God's way versus selfishness pushes us to grow. It tests our growth. That's what planet earth and this is what our physical life is for. And throughout our life we need confidence. We need guidance. We need counsel, comfort, encouragement. And God provides all those things. It's part and parcel of the spiritual aspect of our creation. He gives these to His children and also through His children. We need to be part of that family to receive it and also be a part of the giving and the sharing of it. We need parents. We need God and His Word. We need that calling. We need the Holy Spirit that comes from that calling. And we need you. What we don't need is Satan. That's the one out of the five we don't need. But all of these are the positive encouragers, physical parents, the calling of God, the Holy Spirit and you.

In Acts 9 and verse 31, I'd just like to conclude by showing a scripture here, or reading a scripture that shows how this all works together for promoting the growth of the church. All in one verse. Acts 9 and verse 31. Notice how all of this goes together. I'm going to read this again from the New International Version because it uses the word encourages, encourage instead of some of the other more obscure words. Acts 9 and verse 31. Then the church. We think of the church today. Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened and encouraged by the Holy Spirit. It grew in numbers, living in the deep respect of God. God's children are never lacking of an encourager, or actually many encouragers. Let's seek it from our parents. Let's seek it from the calling, from God's word, from His teachers, and from the Holy Spirit that He's put within us. Let's seek it from each other and give it to each other. Then we will have the legal encouragement we need, the moral encouragement we need, and the emotional encouragement we need in order to succeed and be in the Kingdom of God.