Overcoming Depresion and Discouragement

One of the major problems that quite often we're all faced with is a problem of discouragement. Discouragement and then depression seems to hit a lot of people in our society. It's estimated by some that up to 50% of the hospital beds are occupied by people who are struggling with mental challenges, such as despondency, discouragement, and depression. And when you have a long illness, you have a situation where your health is suffering, you've lost your job, your marriage breaks up, whatever it might be, it becomes easy to become discouraged. Now, I'm not a doctor, and I'm not going to give you medical advice because that would be practicing medicine. I'm not going to recommend to you chemicals or herbal substances or a pill to pop because that's not my position. My job is to teach God's Word. But we know that depression especially is a very debilitating, horrific problem. And we understand that people who have chronic depression maybe fall into a little different category than people who get depressed occasionally or discouraged occasionally. You'll find the world of psychology and psychiatry are very interesting when you look at them. Psychology is the study of the mind and the brain, or the mind and behavior, let's put it that way. Psychiatry is a branch of medicine that deals with the mental, emotional, behavioral disorders. And so you find that many people, it's very common today for people in our society to say, well, who's your psychiatrist? Or, you know, who are you going to? And would you recommend somebody to me? And so, you know, this seems to be something that's quite common. Does God understand what we're going through, the difficulties we're having, the problems we're faced with? What kind of help do we need? And why do we occasionally have these problems? Because not a person sitting here who hasn't on some occasion gone through great discouragement. You know, a group of psychiatric students were in a college class one day. When their professor began to discuss with them a point, he wanted to prove a point to them. And he said, you know, what we're going to talk about today are the emotional extremes that people go through. And the many mental, disturbed people out there. And he asked, for example, what's the opposite of joy? And one of the students said, well, sadness. So, you know, that's what she thought. He said, well, what's the opposite of depression? He asked a young lady. And she said, well, elation! You've got to be elated and excited. Turning to a man from Texas, you know there's going to be a problem. He asked, what's the opposite of woe? Well, now the Texan replied, I suppose the opposite of woe would be giddy up. And, of course, he apparently came from a farming background. Well, with that in mind, let's turn to Exodus chapter 3. Exodus 3. On any night on television, you can see repeated commercials advertising medications for depression. Have you ever stopped to try to count some of these? You know, how many there might be out there? The message is, if you're feeling a little depressed and down, go see your doctor. Tell him you saw this commercial. Ask him to prescribe a pill for you. Some of the more popular brand name antidepressant drugs are things like Prozac, Luvox, Zoloft, Paxil, Lexapro, Clexa, Wellbutrin, Efector, Cymbalta, and Remeron, Desirale, and Zirzone. You know, I'm sure there are a number of others out there as well. So when you look at all of these, well, which one should I take?

You know, maybe you could list them on and talk your doctor into giving them to you. Now, when you listen to the commercials real closely, though, what do you find? Well, there are side effects. What are the side effects? Well, just a small listing. Nausea, anxiety, decreased sex drive, weight gain or weight loss, depending on which pill you take, sweating, fatigue, diarrhea, headaches, nervousness, insomnia, restlessness, dizziness, tremors, sleepiness, or dry mouth, constipation, and blurred vision. So those are all real good side effects that a person can have.

However, depression and anxiety are a very real problem, and far too many people in the world suffer from them. Many of us in the church occasionally go through this. It can come from many sources. And when you look in the Bible, you'll find that God's leaders in the past were not immune to such problems. And we want to take a look at some of their examples today. Let's begin in Exodus chapter 3, and let's take a look at the calling of Moses. We all know the story about Moses. His mother saved his life by hiding him from Pharaoh's decree when he said to have all the baby boys killed. He killed an Egyptian, later fled from the land into the wilderness of Midian. And God eventually leads him to a burning bush. That brings us to Exodus chapter 3. Let's begin the story here in verse 9. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel have come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.

Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. Now you just stop and think, what if God appeared to you? I mean, you're just walking along. The bush is burning over here. You go to check it out, because it doesn't seem to burn up. No, once someone appears to you, I'm God, and this is what I want you to do. There might be a big question mark that you might have, and Moses was not real thrilled with the idea right off the bat, as we'll see. He began to argue with God. In verse 11, Moses said to God, well, who am I? That I should go to Pharaoh, that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt. So he said, I will certainly be with you, and this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain. Well, Moses still isn't ready to just jump into the pond, so to speak, and do what God says. He puts up a lot of arguments, and one of them is, well, the people won't believe me, which truly was a problem. In verse 13, Moses said to God, indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, well, what's his name? What shall I say to them? And God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you.

And God gives Moses all the guidelines of the responsibility, you know, through the end of the chapter, you know, what he should do, how he should approach this. That brings us over here to chapter 4 and verse 1. And you find that Moses still isn't convinced that this is what he should do. Then Moses, in verse 1, answered and said, but suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice. Suppose they say, the Lord has not appeared unto you. Then God discusses with Moses, well, I'll tell you what. Your rod there, you can cast it on the ground and it will turn into a serpent. You can pick it up by the tail and it will become your rod again. Then he has Moses hand turned leprous, and he heals the hand. And just to add another one, he says, look, I'll turn water to blood on the sand for you. And you can perform these signs in the view of all these people. They will believe you. They will accept that you have come from me.

Well, the problem was Moses still didn't buy it. Let's notice in verse 10. Moses said to the Lord, O my Lord, I'm not eloquent. Neither before nor since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue. So the Lord said, Well, who's made man's mouth? Or who made the mute, the deaf, the seen, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? Now, therefore, go, now be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say. Now, Moses should have been jumping up and down by this time. Hey, God's going to take care of my mouth. My problem is going to be resolved here. But he said, verse 13, O my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else you may send.

Why'd you pick on me? Send somebody else. In verse 14, So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite, your brother? I know that he can speak well. And look, he's coming out to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. Now you shall speak to him, put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you shall do. In verse 16, So he shall be your spokesman to the people, and he himself shall be a mouth for you, and you shall be to him as God, and you shall take this rod in your hand, with which you shall do the signs. I want you to notice that God did not give up on Moses. God could have said, Okay, Moses, that's it. I'm tired of talking to you. I'm tired of fooling with you. Forget about you. I'll just choose, Oh, Aaron over here. Aaron will do what I ask him to do. No, he didn't do that. He didn't quit working with him because of his reluctance or anxiety or the fact of his doubt. As we've covered here recently in sermons, doubt and discouragement are two of the big tools that Satan uses to get to God's people. Remember this. When God called us into his church and you were counseled for baptism, did the minister who counseled you say, Now God's called you, and from the moment you're baptized, you will never have another problem in your life. You will be on easy street. God will always work everything out. There will be no test, no trials, no discouragement. Is that what God, what the minister told you when you were baptized? I think probably the opposite. Look 14. You've got to make a commitment. You've got to obey God. Let's notice over here in Numbers 21, beginning in verse 4, Numbers, chapter 21 and verse 4, that it's easy for us to become discouraged. Notice what it said about Israel. God used Moses and Aaron to lead the people to the Promised Land. You and I have been called, and God and Christ are leading us to the Promised Land also, to the Kingdom of God. And let's notice what they became discouraged about. It says, Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Eden, and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way.

They became discouraged on the way. The way was tough. They were walking through the desert, through heat. God had to provide water for them in the desert. He had to bring them quail for me. He had to send them manna. They're out there for 40 years, wandering around. Verse 5, The people spoke against God and against Moses. Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food nor water, and our souls loathe this worthless bread. They didn't like the manna. See, I guess after eating anything for a while, you get a little tired of it. So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and many of the people of Israel died. And when they did, then they came to Moses and said, we've sinned, you know, please help us and intervene. So they became discouraged because of the way. And brethren, sometimes we can become discouraged because of the way. God has called us to live a way of life. And it's not the popular way that society is going in. It is a way that God has called us to live, said an example, and you might lose your job because of the Sabbath. You might have health problems, other difficulties. And yet God has promised us, let's turn back to Hebrews 13.5, an absolute promise as we head toward the kingdom of God, the promised land, so to speak. God tells us here, let your conduct, Hebrews 13.5, be without covetousness, be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you. So the promise from God is that He will never leave us. He will never forsake us. He will always be with us. And God was with Israel. All they had to do is to have faith, have hope and trust in God. Now with that in mind, let's go back to Numbers 11.

Numbers 11. And let's continue the story here of Moses and some of the struggles that he went through. Now keep in mind, Moses is pointed out in the Scriptures as one of the greatest leaders of all time. I mean Moses, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, all of these men. He was handpicked by God. So Moses wasn't just some slouch. God Himself said, I want you. And He chose Him. He was given promises by God. God promised to be with Him. God was going to perform miracles through Him. He would back Him with power. And yet there were times when Moses became really despondent. Let's take a look at Moses in the second year of leading the people out of Egypt. And one of the things that you find is that the people kept complaining and not totally different from our day to day. Sometimes we complain or grumble and gripe about things. Let's pick up the story in verse 11 here. Numbers 11 and 11. So Moses said to the Lord, You have afflicted your servant. Why have I not found favor in your sight that you've laid the burden of all these people on me? Did I concede these people? Did I to get them? That you should say to me, carry them in your bosom? As a guardian carries a nursing child to the land which you swore to their fathers? Verse 13. Where am I going to get meat to give all these people? For they weep all over me, saying, Give us meat that we may eat. Now verse 14 gives you a little insight into his emotional and mental state, his psyche at this time. I am not able to bear all these people alone because the burden is too heavy for me. I just can't do it, he said. Verse 15. If you treat me like this, please kill me. Now when you get to the point where you want God to take your life, you're pretty discouraged and maybe even depressed. He says, Please kill me here and now if I found favor in your sight and do not let me see my wretchedness. So here you have Moses truly becoming despondent and discouraged because of the burden that was placed upon him.

Perhaps we occasionally undergo the same thing. We think this is too much. I've lost my job and I wrecked my car. I've got all these health problems. It's too much and we begin to doubt God and we begin to have problems in that way. So we have an example here. Here's a hand-picked leader. God chose him. God called him to lead Israel and yet we realize that he had struggles. God was with him. God backed him. God backed him with power, but still he had problems. Now he's not the only one, as we will find as we go through the Bible. Let's turn over the book of Joshua. Joshua chapter 7. Moses was a great leader and Joshua was probably the greatest general that Israel had. He was also hand-picked by God. He was the hand-picked successor to Moses to lead the people into the Promised Land. And yet Joshua, as a result of the people not doing as God had instructed, started losing battles. And instead of winning, as God originally told him, God told him, you go in, you'll take the land, don't worry, I'm with you, and bang, bang, bang, you'll drive out these nations, you'll take over their cities. Jericho had finally fallen. Rahab the harlot's house and family had been spared. Then they came to a little town called Ai. And lo and behold, they didn't defeat the inhabitants there. And Joshua begins to lament the sorry state of affairs. In verse 6, Joshua 7, in verse 6, Then Joshua tore his clothes, fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until evening, he and the elders of Israel, and they put dust on their head. And Joshua said, Alas, Lord God, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us, all that we had been content and dwelt on the other side of Jordan? It was okay, we could have just stayed over there. We didn't need to come over here and get bushwhacked, or lose a battle like this. And he felt a little bit like quitting, going back over. He was disheartened by the outcome. But you see, there was something he didn't know, and God pointed it out to him. That the reason for this loss was not God, it was the people. That the people had done evil. The people had sinned. You might remember the story God told them when they went in not to take any booty, that they were not to try to save any of the what's called the accursed things. And ancient did. And as a result of his disobedience and his sin, the whole nation sinned, or was punished, I should say.

I think there's a principle here that we can also glean from this, that sometimes our own personal sins can cause problems to come upon us, can they not? And our own personal sins can get us discouraged. Back in Isaiah 59, in verse 2, Isaiah 59, in verse 2, says, Your iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. So sometimes we find, because of our sins, and until we repent of those sins, that they put a barrier between us and God, and we have to repent. But what happens too often with us is that we become disturbed or discouraged because of our own sins and weaknesses. How often have you struggled with something for years, months? Maybe you thought you had conquered a problem, and maybe you had conquered that problem, and yet it comes back, and it's like a boil, it pops up again, and you wonder, where'd that come from? I thought I'd overcome that, and you still have somewhat of the same problem. So we do become discouraged over our own weaknesses, our sins. Many times we feel unworthy to approach unto God. If you've done something over and over, you've asked God to forgive you. You know, many times, and you come back to God, you think, well, surely God's not going to hear me. We can develop a defeatist attitude if we're not careful. Do we realize, brethren, that every one of us has been handpicked by God? There's not one of us here who has God's Spirit, who God's working with, that God did not call and draw. I mean, the Bible says no one can come unto the Son unless the Father draws Him, John 6, 44. None of us can come to the Father except through Christ. And so they work together in tandem to call and to bring us into His Church. And so we're here because God wants us. God doesn't look on us as a piece of junk that He's going to throw away. We are His people. We are the ones that He's called to be leaders in the world tomorrow, and He's training us. And so, therefore, He understands that we're human. In Psalm 103, Psalm 103, we see that God does truly understand. In verse 10, we find here Psalm 103 in verse 10, God knows what we're like. He knows our frailties. God knows everything about you and me. You and I understand some of our weaknesses. God actually understands far more than we do. And He's merciful. He doesn't reveal everything to us at once. What if God, when you were first baptized, said, okay, let me show these people all of their sins, every weakness, every fault that they've got, and then they can overcome them. It would discourage you, would it not? It would overwhelm you. We get discouraged just occasionally when we find out we have certain weaknesses, if we knew them all. So God is very much for us. He's fighting with us. He's with us. He encourages us, and He doesn't want us to give up. God didn't throw Moses away and kick Joshua out of the leadership positions. He continued to work with these men. Now let's come to a man that we can all identify with. James 5, verse 17, tells us about him. James 5, verse 17.

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. So we could say Elijah was one of the common folk with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. So here we find Elijah was a man like us. Now turn over to 1 Kings 19, 1 Kings chapter 19, and we'll begin to read a little bit about the story of Elijah. Now this, in one sense, is something bizarre about it, in one sense.

You find that Elijah preached one of the greatest sermons of his life. He confronted 400 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, and he exposed them as false prophets. They prayed, they danced, they lanced themselves, they cut, they hooped, they hollered, and they couldn't get Baal to bring any fire down to destroy their offering. And we remember that he soaked the ground, he soaked the altar, he soaked the meat with water, and God sent fire down and lapped it all up and destroyed it. Now because of Elijah's faith and obedience, God literally sent the fire down, consumed the sacrifice that he had placed there. God gave instructions to Elijah to destroy the prophets of Baal, which he did by the sword. God, as we read here, guided him to prophesy three and a half years of no rain. It happened, and he prophesied and it rained again. So God performed all kinds of powerful miracles by the hands of Elijah. Yet, let's notice here in chapter 19, beginning in verse 1, how quickly Elijah goes from being on a high to a deep, deep depression. In verse 1, 1 Kings 19, Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and also how he had executed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life a life of one of them by tomorrow about this time. Now, confronting Ahab, that didn't scare him, Jezebel seemed to have a little more clout. And the threat of wicked Jezebel really did job on Elijah in verse 3. When he saw that, he arose and ran for his life. Now, you would have thought he would have gone up to the palace and said, Jezebel, come out here. You and I need to talk. No, he ran for his life. And when the Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, left his servant there. Didn't want anybody knowing where he was. Verse 4, by the himself, when today's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die and said, it's enough. You know, I've had it. Now, Lord, take my life. I'm no better than my father's. So here he is. God worked with him, performed wonderful miracles, intervened, and now he's asking God to let him die. You might remember when Mr. Armstrong, in his autobiography, mentioned about starting Ambassador College and some of the early trials that he had, that he likewise prayed very similar prayer because of all the pressures that he was under. Now, are we not very happy that God didn't answer that prayer in 1947, spared his life, and allowed him to build the work that we were all products of? Well, here you find Elijah had discouragement, thoughts of his life being taken. He certainly had anxiety. Now, we might ask the question, how would a man who's just preached such an impressive sermon, seeing God's intervention, killed all the prophets of Baal, saw the marvelous display of the power of God, why would he suddenly be crippled with fear and hopelessness and despair and ask God to take his life? Why would he run to a desolate corner of the world and seek to die? Well, there are probably a lot of reasons, but the fact is, he did. Now, what this tells us, brethren, that even some of God's most dynamic servants can suffer discouragement and depression, that we are all human and we're not immune to getting down. It's not necessarily a mark of a lack of faith. It's not necessarily because we're living in a moral lifestyle. Elijah was the man of God during his day. God worked with him. God was behind him.

So how did he get so far down? And even when God had intervened, God didn't leave him. God was with him. God didn't say, well, Elijah, you have a chemical imbalance and Prozac hasn't been invented yet. So I don't know how to help you. I can't give you a pill. God didn't say that to him.

I want you to notice what God did to heal Elijah, or to help Elijah. Let's put it that way. First of all, God recognized that Elijah's depression or discouragement was not an imaginary problem. It was real in his mind. It wasn't just imaginary. Elijah felt hopeless. I'm alone. Here I am. I'm out here. Nobody else is serving God. I'm God's servant. They're out hunting me. They want to kill me. Woe is me. And so he was down. It was something that was tangible. God didn't say to Elijah, get a hold of yourself, Elijah.

This is a sinful attitude. Where's your faith? Buck up, man. Stiff up her lip. Have a drink. God didn't say any of those things to him. God didn't treat Elijah roughly either. Didn't come down, slap him around a little bit. Say, okay, Elijah, you and me, let's go forward. Notice here in verse 5 of this chapter. It says, Then as he lay and slept under a broom-tree, suddenly an angel touched him and said, Arise and eat. Then he looked, and thereby his head was a cake baked on coals in the jar of water. So he ate and drank and laid down again. So he went to sleep. And verse 7, the angel the Lord came back the second time, touched him and said, Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you. So he rose, he ate, and he drank. And he went on the strength of that food forty days and forty nights, as far as Horeb, the mountain of God. Forty days and forty nights he takes a hike. Now, in answer to Elijah's prayer to die, God fed him and God allowed him to sleep.

And one of the major outcomes of depression that a person can have a lot of times is the fact that that individual sleeps a lot. They don't know what to do. And so they sleep. God then sends an angel to feed him, lets him sleep a little more. God sends him down to the desert forty days and forty nights. And all this time, God hasn't said a word. God hasn't come down to rebuke him, kick him. He doesn't offer him counsel at this time. He hasn't sat down with Elijah face to face yet to tell him, look, this is what you need to do. All this time, Elijah is left alone and he's given time to think about it. But eventually, obviously, God's going to have to deal with his discouragement, his anxiety. So let's notice the second thing that God does. God gives Elijah a safe place to recover, the rest to think about what was going on.

And what you find when somebody is going through something like this, they need, and I'm talking about us, they need somebody who cares for them. Somebody who's not just being judgmental all the time. We all have close friends. Maybe we also have our mate. We have others that are going to be there to encourage us, to strengthen us. Hold your place here, but let's go over to Ecclesiastes chapter 4 and verse 9. The Bible tells us how important it is to have others around, especially those who care for you, those who are concerned about you. Let's notice in Ecclesiastes 4, beginning in verse 9, Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor.

For if they fall, one will lift up his companion, but woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up. Elijah thought he was alone. Elijah thought there was not another person serving God in Israel, and that he was all on his own. This is one reason why he felt discouraged. Again in verse 11, if two lie down together, they will keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a three-fold cord is not quickly broken. Brethren, we all need help occasionally. We all need people who care for us, who are there to help us, to inspire us, to be with us when we're going through the trials and difficulties that we're going through. Let's back up to 1 Kings 19 again, in verse 9 this time. 1 Kings 19 and verse 9, And you find there he went into a cave and spent the night in that place. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him and said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah? Why are you way over here?

Now, the third thing you find that God does is He tells Elijah what He felt the problem was. God had Elijah tell him what He, that's Elijah, felt the problem was. In verse 10, notice what Elijah says. I've been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts. For the children of Israel forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they seek to take my life. I'm the only one around. And he said, Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, and behold, the Lord passed by. And a great and strong wind tore into the mountain and broke the rocks and pieces before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake of fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still, small voice. So God again displayed his power to Elijah, and he came back to him in a still, small voice. Now, Elijah had just articulated to him what he thought the problem was. He was alone. He's the only one serving God. What did he get for it? Well, we'll see here. Notice in verse 13. So it was when Elijah heard it that he wrapped his face, and his mantle went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And suddenly a voice came to him, What are you doing here, Elijah? And he said, I've been very zealous for the Lord of hosts. Because of the children of Israel forsaken, their covenant torn down your altar, killed your prophets. I alone and left, and they seek to take my life.

I want you to notice that hidden in all of this statement by Elijah is actually an accusation. I've been doing everything you told me to do, Lord. I've been serving you. I've done everything you told me, and everything is falling apart around me. And I'm the only one left. Just doesn't seem that obeying you is producing the right results. What have you been doing? You know, in essence, he's asking God. So God has to correct Elijah's thinking. And notice he tells Elijah that he's not left alone in verse 18. God tells Elijah, Yet I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him. So God tells Elijah right off the bat, Look, you may think, because of how I've used you, that you're the only one, but I've been working with a lot more people than you know.

The same thing could be said today, that God is probably working with a lot more people than we're aware of, and beginning to work with their minds, and beginning to open their minds, or beginning to guide and to lead them. And sometimes we look around and we think, well, you know, here we are. We've struggled. We're trying to get the gospel out. We're doing all of this. And where are the results? Well, God knows how to call. He knows how to deal with people. Let's back up to verse 15.

The Lord said to him, and notice God had some other things in mind that Elijah was not aware of. You and I don't always know what God is going to do. Doors he will open, things that he will produce. God told him, You go and return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus, and when you arrive, anoint Hazael as king over Syria. Verse 16, also, you shall anoint Jehu, the son of Nimshai as king over Israel, and Elisha, the son of Shefat, of Abel, Mahola, you shall anoint as a prophet in your place. And it shall be that whoever escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill, and whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill. And so God was going to use him to anoint men who were going to be kings, and to anoint a prophet to follow in his footsteps. Now God simply hadn't told him yet, had he? And there are times when God doesn't always tell us everything. We don't know until afterwards, and we see the fruits, we see the doors that God has opened, and God will open those doors. God will intervene on our behalf. So at last God gave Elijah something to do. He told him, you go back, you carry out my word, you get busy and do something constructive.

God, in other words, told Elijah, don't you worry about it. I'm in charge. I am, and I am doing something, is what he told him. So the same thing is very true for all of us. We may be going through a problem, and we think, where is God? Why hasn't he intervened? And God is working things out. He may be working something out that we're totally unaware of. And yet when it comes to pass, we say, that was God's intervention. You know, God truly helped me. When our allied troops were making their way across Europe, and they were resisting Hitler's forces, and they were charging towards Germany, they came across a bombed-out building that had this inscription scrawled on the basement wall. I believe in the sun even when it's not shiny. I believe in love even when it's not shown. And I believe in God even when he doesn't speak.

Whether we see God intervening exactly the way we think he should, doesn't negate the fact that God is there, and that we are his children. We are his hand-picked one. When a person is pressed, they don't think God is doing much of anything on their behalf. You know, they may ask the question, where is God? They don't have hope. They don't have confidence. God isn't easily seen by them. It's easy for us to focus on the around. It's easy for us to focus on our problems. It's even easy for us to focus on society and people in society. We begin to see others. We see how they're prospering. We wonder why? Psalm 73. David was confronted with the same question. Psalm 73, beginning in verse 1. He looked around at the wicked, the unconverted. He saw they were fat. Their children were well taken care of. They had big houses. Notice verse 1. Psalm 73. Surely God is good to Israel, to such as are of pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled. My steps nearly slipped. For I was envious of the boastful when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. So he saw their prosperity, and he became very jealous of them. And as he said here, he almost stumbled over this. Verse 12 says, Behold, these are the ungodly who are always at ease. They increase in riches. Surely he thought I have cleansed my heart in vain. Surely I've been struggling to overcome and to grow and to do all of this, and I did it in vain and wash my hands and innocence. And then in verse 17, you know, he's going through this all day long. Well, verse 14. All day long I've been plagued and chastened every morning, and I've said, I will speak thus. Behold, I would have been untrue to the generations of your children. When I thought how to understand this, it was too painful for me until I went into the sanctuary of God, and I understood therein. See, when you understand the plan of God, the purpose of God, you understand the end result of what God is working out, how God is dealing with us, then you can come.

And move forward. Sometimes someone else's blessing can cause us to be discouraged, because we didn't receive a blessing or we didn't receive as big of a blessing as they did. And we wonder, how come they're blessed? I know I'm doing more. I'm serving more in the church. I'm helping more. I think I'm overcoming. I've been around longer. Why me? Why hasn't God blessed me? Or we can say, well, I've been faithful in tithing, but I haven't been blessed yet.

We can say the same thing about keeping the Sabbath. I've faithfully kept the Sabbath, the Holy Days. I've saved my second tithe. Came back from the feast and lost my job.

We've all had similar experiences in the past. Then we begin to say, I don't understand. Why do we see others prospering and others being blessed? And I'm not. And we get down and out. We begin to question God even in these situations. How could God allow such and such to happen to me? Why am I not being blessed?

We even come to the point, if we're not careful, to begin to question God. How could God allow this? A person that becomes depressed or greatly discouraged, like Elijah, sometimes can't see God working in their life. But we read his example. We know very clearly that God was working with him. Why? Well, we can read it. But you and I don't have a book to read that says, you know, this day you do this, and God was with you, and God did this, and God did that for you. We do have this book, brethren. And any time we find we begin to become discouraged, we've got to sic our nose in this book more. We've got to read the promises of God more. We've got to pray more. We've got to get our minds focused on God, His promises, His Word, what He has done for us. We need to go back and remember how God has intervened on our behalf in the past. We need to seek help from others and encouragement. Let me show you that there's also one other ingredient that we really need that will help us. Several years ago, there was an experiment on endurance that was conducted at the University of California in Berkeley. The experiment involved placing Norwegian rats. Now, I'm not comparing us to rats, but placing Norwegian rats in a tub of water where they were forced to swim until they were exhausted, and they drowned. How long would they swim? was the question. How long would they endure? During the first experiments, the researchers found out that on the average, these rats were capable of swimming seven hours before drowning. They conducted a second experiment with the rats, exactly like the first one. But when the rats were almost too exhausted to swim, they removed them from the tub for a few seconds. Not very long, just a few seconds. Put them back in the water to swim. And guess what? Those rats were able to endure for 20 hours before they drowned. Now, what lesson did they learn from this? Well, they concluded that the rats in the second group were able to swim longer for one reason. They had hope. They had almost drowned. They'd been pulled out, put on solid ground for a few moments. They realized that they weren't going to drown at that moment. And even though they got back to the next one, they had to be able to swim and almost triple the amount of time before they drowned. They had experienced a rescue.

And brethren, there's not one of us here who has not experienced God's rescue on our behalf over the period of time. We've been healed. God's intervened to help us. We've been healed. God's intervened to help us. We've always had food, clothing, and shelter. God has taken care of us. He gives us hope. And so, we find that hope is a great motivator. And so, what we need to do is to make sure that not only do we, when we find ourselves becoming despondent, look in the Word of God. And I would say that, especially during the good times, that's when you need to study, put together chapters of the Bible, list of verses. They give hope, inspiration, that show what God inspiration, that show what God will do so that when you become discouraged, you get the Bible out and you read through those verses. You read through those chapters, or you read through a particular book. Books like Proverbs, the Psalms. The book of Psalms, I think, is written for God's people. God inspired it to be there because David, being human just like us, we see the struggles that he went through. How many times do you find David crying out, Oh Lord, help me! And God intervened on his behalf to help him. So, brethren, God is there. And we need to ask God, during any time we go through these difficulties, to give us hope. And remember what God said in Hebrews 13.5, I will never leave you, and I will never forsake you.