Discouragement is something that's like anything else. It's not something you can ignore. It's like a flat tire. You can't ignore a flat tire. You can say, well, I'll just leave it until later and maybe it'll go away, but it's going to be there in the morning, it's going to be there tomorrow, it's going to be there next week, and eventually you're going to have to confront it. And so Nehemiah is going to have to deal with some things, and there's nothing like dealing with discouragement. I think it's a problem that has plagued us all, if you've lived any length of time whatsoever. And there's nothing that will take the wind out of your sails like discouragement. So how can we deal with it? The Bible says that the gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation. Welcome to Pulpit Power featuring Pastor Tony Skeving, Senior Pastor of Fargo Baptist Church in Fargo, North Dakota. Today's message was previously preached before a church audience. And now, here's Pastor Skeving. Let's take our Bibles and turn to the book of Nehemiah back in your Old Testament Nehemiah chapter 4 we're in a series and we've been going through this chapter by chapter and verse by verse here and earlier on we saw today that that Nehemiah faced some opposition, obvious opposition, and we see that he just kind of kept the pedal to the metal, he gutted it out, and he kept going, and that's great. But you're going to see in the passage that we're going to be looking at today how in time The labor, the burdens, the pressure, the fatigue begin to take their toll on the man Nehemiah. And he gets discouraged. So what does he do? Well, let's pick it up in verse 10, Nehemiah chapter 4, and we'll look at this chapter until the end. It says, And Judah said, The strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed, and there is much rubbish, so that we are not able to build the wall. And her adversaries said, They shall not know, neither see, till we come in the midst among them and slay them, and cause the work to cease. And it came to pass that when the Jews which dwelt by them came, they said unto us ten times, From all places when she shall return unto us, they will be upon you. Therefore said I in the lower places behind the wall, in the higher places I even set the people after their families with their swords, their spears, and their bows. I looked and rose up and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, be not afraid of them. Remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses. And it came to pass when our enemies heard that it was known unto us, and God had brought their counsel to naught, that we returned all of us to the wall, everyone to his work. And it came to pass from that time forth, that the half of my servants wrought in the work, and the other half of them held both the spears, and the shields, and the bows, and the haverkins, and the rulers were behind all the house of Judah. They which built on the wall, and they that bear burdens, with those that laid it, every one with one in his hands wrought in the work, and with one of the other hand held a weapon. For the builders, every one had his sword girded by his side, and so builded. And he that sounded the trumpet was by me. And I said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, The work is great and large. We are separated upon the wall, one far from another. In what place, therefore, ye hear the sound of the trumpet, resort ye thither unto us. Our God shall fight for us. So we labored in the work, and half of them held the spears from the rising of the morning till the stars appeared. Likewise, at the same time, said I unto the people, let every one with his servant lodge within Jerusalem, that in the night they may be a guard to us and labor on the day. So neither I, nor my brethren, nor my servants, nor the men of the guard which followed me, none of us put off our clothes, saving that every one put them off for washing. We're going to take a look at this passage and we're going to look at some other parallel passages. We talk about discouraged leadership. Let's pray before we begin. Heavenly Father, we thank you, dear Lord, for this wonderful book of the Bible that teaches us so much on leadership. Few in the Bible like it. And Father, we thank you for the principles that we've been able to learn already. We thank you for that which we've covered even earlier today. As we look at this passage here tonight, may we not look at it as some stuffy, crusty passage from decades and centuries, millenniums ago, but Father, something that you've given to us in the 21st century to help us with the present day lives we're living, especially in these latter days. And may we exhort one another with this passage and so much more as we see the day of Christ approaching. Help us now to listen carefully, help us to get something that will strengthen us, and we pray for your help in Jesus' name. Amen. Somebody so well said that if the enemy can't puff in you with pride, he'll dampen you with discouragement. I hate to just point out two extremes like it's one or the other, but the devil will bring us down a number of ways, and it's odd that I've seen many get pulled down with pride. The devil puffs them up with pride. But I've also seen some throw in the towel over the years out of discouragement. The devil couldn't puff them with pride, so he dampened them with discouragement. And really it covers so much of the Christian life when we talk about discouragement. And as we see the devil covering all those bases, we want to look at this subject. There are some of you who have faced discouragement this last week or this last month or this quarter. There are some who will in the months to come certainly face discouragement. Especially if you're in your place of leadership, and most people are. We talked about that earlier today. We talked about the chicken-giver-outer. It could be the person who's overseeing the racetrack at the go-kart here in town, like some of you were at here the other night, and having that authority. It could be a bus driver who has authority. It could be a semi-driver. who has authority. It could be an assistant manager, it could be an apartment manager, it could be a foreman at a job site, it could be an older sibling, it could be a businessman, it could be a teacher, it could be a coach, it could be certainly parents, or it could be the guy who gives tech support, it could be that person who's a night watchman. But whatever it is, we have these positions of leadership in life, and as we do, There are going to be times when we get discouraged. So what do we do? Well, we find that the year is about 450 B.C. and there's this wall getting built. And what could be exciting about building a wall? Well, we back up to chapter 1 and we find out a very unique man had a very unusual burden. His name is Nehemiah. Nehemiah was the king's cupbearer. And Nehemiah was a fellow who had, I don't think, ever been to Jerusalem, but somehow it was in his heart. They say that you can't take Jerusalem out of the heart of a Jew, and certainly that would be true for Nehemiah. And so he gets this burden. He prays that he would be allowed to go back and kind of revive and rekindle a building project that had went flat many years earlier. And through special prayer and the permission of the king at the time, he's able to leave Persia, make about a 700 or 800 mile trek back to Jerusalem. He surveys everything before he even tells anybody why he's there. And then he says, let's rise up and build. God's in this. And he has a rallying point and the people get around him. And we just opened chapter 3 with everybody busy. They're rising up and they're building. except for those nobles we looked at earlier in chapter 3, verse 5. But then we find as chapter 4 opens, there are some issues, there are some enemies. We find out there are Sanballat, and Tobiah, and Geshem, the Arabian. There's always going to be people like that, because if you're going to try and go forward and do anything for God, it's not going to allow the devil to sit still. You've opened a can of worms spiritually, and you can expect some opposition at that time. And so there's mockery taking place, there's threats taking place, there's a conspiracy, and all of this, I think, is coming down on Nehemiah until finally he inevitably gets discouraged. Discouragement is something that's like anything else. It's not something you can ignore. It's like a flat tire. You can't ignore a flat tire. You can say, well, I'll just leave it until later and maybe it'll go away, but it's going to be there in the morning, it's going to be there tomorrow, it's going to be there next week, and eventually you're going to have to confront it. And so Nehemiah is going to have to deal with some things, and there's nothing like dealing with discouragement. I think it's a problem that has plagued us all, if you've lived any length of time whatsoever. And there's nothing that will take the wind out of your sails like discouragement. So how can we deal with it? Well, we need to talk about it, that's how. And as we look at discouragement, especially in the realm of leadership, we see, first of all, what I call negative people. There's the negative people of discouragement. If you wind up discouraged, it's normally because you put in the factor of people. Life would be smooth if it weren't for one thing. And that's people. Now, your car might give you trouble. Your appliances might give you trouble. There are inanimate objects that are going to cause you to probably wring your hands a little bit and get discouraged. But that's probably 10% of the time. I would say 90% of the time, if we're confronted with discouragement, It's because of people, something about people. And so we see these negative people that are going to enter into the scene here and they're going to cause discouragement to Nehemiah the leader. First of all, we find a very unusual source of discouragement in verse number 10 as the passage opens, and Judah said, The strength of the bearers of burden is decayed, and there is much rubbish, so that we are not able to build the wall." Notice Judah, the tribe of Judah, one of twelve tribes, a special tribe at that, comes to Nehemiah and says, we're sick of this. We're tired. This is getting old. Now, of all the tribes of Israel, you wouldn't expect Judah to be the one to discourage the leader. Why do I say Judah was a special tribe out of the twelve? Well, when old man Jacob was laying on his deathbed in Genesis chapter 49, he said, Reuben, here's the future of your lineage. And Simeon, here's the future of your lineage. And Levi, here's the future of your lineage. And he goes through the 12 and he singles out Judah. And he has nothing but good accolades and a positive future for them. We read in Genesis 49.9, he says, Judah is a lion's whelp. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet. Now you've got to know a little bit of Bible to know what he's talking about here. But he's talking about a future promise that God would make to David. David was a son of Judah, if you will. And he said to David, he said, there will always be one of your boys, your grandboys, your great-grandsons, or down the line that's going to sit on the throne, and out of that's going to come one special ruler in Israel. He's called Shiloh in this verse. It's a reference to Jesus Christ, until Shiloh shall come, and it would be from the tribe of Judah. Not only would the future kings of Israel come, but Jesus Christ himself would come. It was the most respected tribe in Israel, and the origin of Jesus Christ, no less, and of all people, for discouragement to come from Judah. Not good. But we find another source here. Also, we find out there was a conspiracy with Sanballat and Tobiah and the Three Stooges, I call them, these evil guys, and they were poisoning the minds of other people who were living near them. And we find in verse 12, it says, and it came to pass, that when the Jews which dwelt by them came, they said unto us ten times, from all places when she shall return unto us, they will be upon you." Notice they brought this evil report, and by the way, this is Nehemiah's journal, this is what's in his heart, this is his diary, and he's telling us what's going on here, and he's saying those Jews that live on the border, by Sanballat and his crowd, keep coming here, ten times no less, and giving us this evil report, it's not encouraging. It's really hurting us, it's dragging us down. These were the Jews near the enemy, and their ears were being bombarded with these negative reports from these negative people. And may I stop here and say, if you hang around negative people, it's just a matter of time until they get to you. The Nagos, as we call them here, will discourage you. You can plan on that. You can't hang around negativism without it eventually affecting you. And if you get around somebody who's got a burr under their saddle, or even something against this church, and they have a critical spirit, the spirit of variance, and they keep hammering away at you, it's just a matter of time until they get to you. And put question marks over the spiritual leadership of the church, or the ministries of the church, or other things involved in the church, you can't hang around it without it affecting you. I've seen even wives who were godly and saved and loved the Lord, who had a backslidden husband who was doing some of that stuff, and eventually dragged down the wife. I've seen it work the other way around where a husband was on the top side spiritually but had this wife with a critical heart and kept working on him until they dragged the husband down. If you're given to discouragement, may I encourage you to stay away from those negative people. Stay away from the negos if you will. As a pastor, I avoid them because I can't afford that negative spirit around me. I know missionaries who avoid negative people. I know ministry heads who avoid negative people. It's just a good idea. If you're around somebody who's at that critical spirit, get away from them. They're going to get to you eventually. So we find out there's, first of all, the tribe of Judah. Secondly, there's these Jews that live near the enemy. We looked earlier today at a third group that had to be discouraging. Remember the nobles back there in Tekoa in chapter 3 and in verse 5 who would not put their necks to the work of the Lord? Now that's always discouraging. When you've got this movement you're rallying around but there are some folks who won't get on board. And there's these folks here, and there's always some. And so we find all these areas, but obviously there's also Sanballat, and Tobiah, and Geshem the Arabian, and there's the army of Samaria, and there's all these guys coming against Nehemiah and his crowd. These are negative people, and eventually they're going to be discouraging, because evil people are discouraging. Do you know any evil people? I know plenty. And they can be so discouraging as they attack you. especially when you see them prosper in your self-struggle. You know anyone like that? I mean, they're wicked, and they're ungodly, and they're totally contrary to everything this book stands for, but there they are, and they're prospering. You know, there was a time when the psalmist looked at that, and it really bugged him. In Psalm 73, 2, he said, but as for me, my feet were almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped, For I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." This whole chapter of the Bible deals with that, how that psalmist struggled with watching wicked people prosper, and here he was trying to do right and lift the Lord, and he was struggling. But don't let that be the barometer of your prosperity if everything's going well. God might want you, like the Apostle Paul, to really go through the mill and refine you in that process to use you in a greater way. There are all kinds of reasons why Christian people struggle. But I'm just saying there are many negative people out there, and we see, first of all, the negative people of discouragement. Secondly, we see the natural promptings of discouragement. There are some very common causes that bring about discouragement, and we find them all right here. Notice in verse 10 again, the strength of the bearers of burden is decayed and there is much rubbish so that we are not able to build the wall. The first thing he mentions here is that the strength of the builders is decaying, it's diminishing, it's evaporating, it's shrinking and they can't hold on anymore. You know, when you think about it, When you get tired, you're very vulnerable for discouragement, aren't you? It's at those moments when you have low energy or no energy, and those who work long hours know the fatigue that can lead to discouragement, getting discouraged eventually, and it can become your worst enemy because you push so hard, you push so hard, and you push so hard. In verse 10, notice it says, the strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed. That Hebrew word keshal there, that word decayed there, it means to stagger, it means to stumble, it means to totter, it means to weaver, it means to go back and forth and sway, and actually your strength has decayed to the point to where you're kind of on rubber leg street as they call it, and you're light headed, and you're kind of just off balance. I remember when we were doing some landscaping over at the very first building that we built in 1990. And the following summer, we were doing some landscaping. I'm telling you, it had to be the hottest day of the year, and we had a low turnout. I remember that. And so we were going double speed, and the sun was going to set. And we just had to get it done, and I just over did it, and I just nearly passed out. I sat on the tailgate of the pickup, and I was woozy. The strength of the bearers of burden here had gotten to where they were tottering, and they were teetering. And the word keshal there means to decay. Basically, these folks were tired, they were hot, they were putting in long hours, and they had a long way to go. We find in verse number six that the wall was about half done. It says, So built with a wall, and the wall was joined together under the half thereof. So there they are at the halfway point. And boy, you can get discouraged at that halfway point, or even that partway point. The Bible tells us in Proverbs 13, 12, hope deferred. make the heart sick. Hope delayed. Hope put off. You say, I'm hoping, I'm hoping, I'm hoping. But you can only go so long. And this delay takes place in that hope deferred can make your heart sick. It can get you to where the place you just can't keep going on. And discouragement sets in when the newness wears off. And there was no doubt a time period where the thrill and the newness of building this wall was going to wear off eventually. Have you ever gotten into a remodeling project? How many of you have remodeled your homes? Quite a few of us have. It can be an exciting thing to start out in, can't it? And you say, man, I'm going to just dig into this thing. And about halfway through it gets really old. How about paying off a house? You know, it gets really exciting. We bought our first house! And you start making those payments and you're trying to make accelerated payments and reduce that debt and so on. And there comes a point somewhere there where you say, this is getting old. You lose your strength. You lose your energy. I think of the Jews when they were coming out of Egyptian bondage there. And after hundreds of years of being slaves to the people of Egypt, they're out and they have their freedom. It's exciting. It's really exciting. But it gets old. And at some point, they begin to complain and grumble and mumble. And we read in Numbers 21.4, And they journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea to encompass the land of Edom. And the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. Because of the way. And so we find out, first of all, their energy is wearing out. But notice also, secondly in verse number 10, Judas said, The strength of the bearers of burden is decayed. Notice this. and there is much rubbish." That's the Hebrew word afor. It means clay, it means mortar, it means old brick, and mud, and junk, and ashes, and things along that line. There's much rubbish here. There's so much stuff in the way. I remember when we bought the farm, literally, 16 years ago. It had sat vacant for a few years. And I'm telling you, it was falling apart. The wings on the granary were collapsed to the ground. The barn was just about all the way over. And those were the best parts of the place. The house was the worst part of the place. And I'll never forget some of the fellas who came out there, and they saw it in those days. Dean came out there, and Donny spent a lot of time out there, and many of the rest of you spent a lot of time out there. And there was so much junk, we actually had to tear it out and throw it over the edge of the upstairs porch, and it landed on the ground, and it made a pile that went all the way up. to the upstairs porch, and there's just much rubbish there. It was such a mess there. I remember old Clyde Barnes from Springfield, Missouri, dear friend of mine and preacher coming by, and he saw that mess, and I could read his face. We were in the building project, or the remodeling project, my wife and I, and he said, Brother Skevings, he always put an S on the end of it for some reason, he said, Brother Skevings, just hang in there, it's gonna be okay, and you just keep on going. I'm going, ah, it's easy for you to say, because you're gonna drive out of here, and I'm gonna stay here with this mess. But my dad came by as well and he tried to do the same thing, you know, hang in there son, it's going to be great and that kind of thing. But you could tell, and he told me later, he said, oh, I thought to myself, you bit off way more than you could chew this time. It was a mess, much rubbish. Ever got yourself into a situation where there is just so much junk? Historians tell us that Jerusalem had been ransacked and destroyed and leveled dozens of times. So imagine all this junk here, this debris. And that's all they could see. They had a problem and it caused discouragement. They lost their vision. And they were looking at the rubbish now, instead of God. And when that happens, we are going to, as God's people, get discouraged. They lost their vision of finishing the wall. Their strength was decayed. They were looking at the junk there. By the way, when we were building this building, there was junk all over the place. Our offices then were in the missionary apartment. And there were many times, and I can still almost see the window across the yard there, that I would look out that window and I would see this building under construction and try and envision it as done one day, and what it would actually look like at that point there, and how exciting that would be. But it'll help to keep you going if you can keep your eyes on the Lord and see the finished product, but sometimes that's hard to do. Parents, sometimes it's hard for us to see the finished product, isn't it? As we're raising our kids and envisioning that day when we see them walk down the aisle and join hands with somebody else and establish a new family, and through your mind goes all those memories of the hours and the late nights and the long days that you invested in your children, trying to get them to do right and turn out and live for the Lord. And as a parent, you're going to deal with some tough stuff. You really are. And you can't lose your vision of the finished product here. Because anything that's worthwhile is worth the investment and the time. Some of you have learned an instrument. We heard a beautiful offertory over here just a little while ago. That didn't happen overnight. That takes years and years and years of practice. I think of Deidre sitting down here, and I remember when she was a little girl, and she was taking piano lessons, and her mother sits with her today next to her there, and I'm sure heard many clunkers over the years as she was practicing. We sure heard them in our family with our Bethy, and it's just part of learning something. It's worth the effort, but it's not easy. And you get at a halfway point or a partway point, and you say to yourself, is this worth it? Is this really worth going on here? And it can really destroy your enthusiasm. So we see here that they had lost their strength. They had lost their vision. But notice, thirdly, we also see in verse number 10. Notice this. so that we are not able to build the wall. Now they've lost their faith, their confidence if you want to call it that. And when you lose your strength, you're going to lose your vision. And when you lose your vision, your faith is going to follow. Now Christian people have special promises in the Bible that nobody else can claim. Paul in Philippians 4.13 said, can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me." Isn't that a wonderful promise? We have this promise that if God's in it, we can do it through Christ. The very thought of that strength in the Apostle Paul. But when you have discouraged men around the corner winking at you, I'm telling you, you begin to doubt those promises, or you begin to forget those promises. Something had happened to God's people here, because verse 6 says, "...the people had a mind to work, the wall was joined unto the half thereof." But somewhere between verse 6 and verse 10, that's just kind of falling apart. The wheels are falling off the whole building project here, and it's unraveling here, and it's in a free fall now, and the strength of the bearers of burden has decayed, there's much rubbish, and now they're saying we're not able to do this. We shouldn't have started this. This was a bad idea. We're never going to finish this. You say, well, what happened? They were looking at the mess instead of the Lord. They had taken their eyes off the Lord. Folks, this is such an important principle here. Their eyes were on the mess. And if your eyes get on the mess, you're going to get discouraged. You're going to lose your heart. You're going to lose your motivation. You're going to lose your cool. There's this empty, overwhelming sense of, I'm never going to be able to do this. I'm never going to catch up with this. This was just a bad idea. We find a fourth thing, a natural prompting to discouragement here. And that is that they had become fearful. They were now insecure because of the enemy around them. Notice in verse number 11, And our adversary said, They shall not know, neither see, till we come in the midst among them, and slay them, and cause the work to cease. And it came to pass that when the Jews which dwelt by them came, they said unto us ten times, from all places when she shall return unto us, they will be upon you." Now notice what the devil is resorting to here. Scare tactics. Scare tactics, basically fear. And when we lose our confidence in God, our faith in God, our security in God, we find discouragement. What is your security in today? Very good question. You say, well, it's in the Lord. Is it really? Is it really? Because discouragement will set in if you lose whatever you're secure in. If your security is in money, and you lose your money, what's going to happen? We find in 1 Timothy 6.17, it says, Notice that adjective, that descriptive way of talking about riches. They're uncertain. It says, be not high-minded nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God. Is your security in your savings account? Is your security in your job? If you lose your job, guess what? You're going to get discouraged if that's where your trust is, your security is. I mean, it could be anything. Maybe it's your setting. Maybe it's everything that you have here, your home, your job, your friends, the area. I was talking to somebody recently and somebody that God has called into full-time service. I said, if you leave this area, how will your wife feel about that? And I thought that'd be a good question because a wife might really have a hard struggle with the security of uprooting and going someplace else to serve the Lord. I love the Red River Valley, I really do. I've lived here all my life. and I really wouldn't want to live anywhere else, but if God called me out of here in a moment, would I lose my security? You see, whatever your security is in, if it's anything but the Lord, if you lose it, you're going to get discouraged. And we find out here that the Jews were being threatened with a scare tactic and had lost their security and were beginning to fear. You know, the wall's going to get built. It's going to be built in a short amount of time. But it didn't look like it at this point. Any endeavor is going to have obstacles along the way, bumps in the road, if you will. And oftentimes, let me just say, normally before any great achievement in life, the devil's going to fight extra hard. And sometimes you can even take a step backwards during those times. I was telling somebody yesterday, I said, anytime this church has endeavored to go forward, while we're in the middle of something, be it a building program, starting a radio station, or something big for God, like the training center now, we have always seen a step backward. We've only seen the devil attack with a ferociousness that has really knocked some people off and sent some people flying. And you could get very discouraged at such times, but I've learned to say, here we go again. God's going to do something great when we come through this. And God would do something great with God's people here. Now there was a fifth thing that discouraged them, and we find it in verse 10, again where it says, we are not able to build the wall. And we find there they had really gotten to the place of getting too much of a burden, too much rubbish, too much doubt, too much attack, and they finally got to the place where they said, we are not able to build the wall. Notice their sufficiency is in themselves at this point, and not in the Lord. We're not able to do anything, folks. Paul said, I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me. But there are going to be demands on us that are going to drag us down, and we are going to have to get to the end of ourselves to where we say, we are not able to do this. Second Corinthians 3.5 says not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything is of ourselves. But our sufficiency is of God. And maybe you've lost your vision, lost your energy, lost your faith, become fearful and overwhelmed, and you say, I can't do it, it's not worth it, I'm discouraged. When we come to the end of ourselves, God is there. That's where we'll meet God. Now again, discouragement isn't something we can ignore. We have to confront it. It's like a buzzing alarm clock that's out of our reach. We're going to have to get up and do something about it. We can't just let it go away. You can pray all you want. It's not going to go away. But we can confront it. We see the negative people. We see the natural promptings. And finally, let's look at the needful prescription. The needful prescription for discouragement. What did Nehemiah do to overcome discouragement? Notice in verse 13, he takes action. Therefore said I in the lower places behind the wall, and on the higher places I even set the people after their families with their swords, their spears, and their bows." Notice first of all here, he didn't quit. This is his journal. He tells us step by step what he's doing, what he's encountering, how he's feeling, and notice when all this is caving in on him, he keeps on going. May I say to you, never, never, never, never quit. If you know God is in it, if you know God led you into it, no matter how discouraging it gets, keep on going. You know, they voted Winston Churchill the greatest Brit of all time, and England has certainly had some amazing leaders, and it's a colorful past. But they put Winston Churchill at the top, and he was not a popular man when he was leading. But after World War II was over, and he got that little island country through that horrible war, he was on the circuit making speeches, and he went to one place and he got up to make his speech, and all he said is, ladies and gentlemen, never, never, never, Never, never quit. And he sat down. And nobody's ever forgotten that speech. And he was qualified to make that speech. He never quit. Now it's easy to say, don't ever quit. But may I say it again, don't ever quit. I don't care what's happening, don't quit. In fact, really when things are going rough and you're discouraged, it's the worst time to quit. Because your decision maker is broken. And now you're making a decision with a broken decision maker, and it'll always get you out of God's will. And you'll always regret that. in years to come. It will affect you, your family, your posterity. So when you're discouraged, number one, just mark it down, put a red line under it, a blue circle around it. Don't ever quit at that time. See it through, plow through, put your head down, keep going. I mean, when your decision maker is working again, maybe make some kind of decision then. But if you're discouraged, don't ever quit. Determine to persist and to go forward no matter what. We find some really neat examples in the Bible of persistence and determination. And there's one little old gal there in the Gospels that's often overlooked. She's just called a Syrophoenician woman. And she had an ailing child, and she went to Christ, and she begged Him to heal her daughter. And Jesus kind of said, well, it's not right for me to take the miracles that belong to the Jews and give them to the Gentiles. He put it this way. Not meat to take the children's food and cast it to the dogs. Not real encouraging. And most of us would have just kind of tucked our tail in and walked away and said, I'm out of here. But she said, yea, Lord, that's true. But I'll take the crumbs. He said, oh woman, great is thy faith. She just wouldn't give up. And he said, be it done unto you. Notice as we read Mark 7, 26, the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation, and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. She would not quit. It really all centers around one word, perseverance. Perseverance. In the book of Job, we find a man suffering like I don't think any man outside of Christ has ever suffered. And in Job 17 verse 9, Job said this, and stronger. You know, if we go through it and it beats us down, it's only to make us stronger and stronger. And if you know you're on God's side, the Bible tells us as the righteous to hold on, to hold on to His way. In 25 years of pastoring here, there have been times I've just had to hang on to God and His way and let God see us through it. Just go forward with the plan. The plan was to build the wall, and Nehemiah continues with that. Notice in verse 13, he goes on, And I looked up, and rose up. I like those words there. Notice, I looked up and I rose up. He looked, he surveyed the situation, he pondered, he thought about it, he got a plan and then he rose up. He rose up. We need a strategy and then we need to rise up. Now part of his strategy was unifying, and I thought this was interesting in verse number 13, he mentions the families. The families, their families actually, after their families, up to now everybody was scattered and they were kind of working all over and certain tribes and cities and so on were working in certain areas but they were big areas. And that would have been fun to just kind of send your kids out there and go help somebody and have a big time and all that. But now we find an incentive to build the wall and that was to get this protective barrier around them to keep them safe from the enemy and to protect them from the adversaries like Samballot and Tobiah. And so Nehemiah introduces the family. He says, what about your families? That's a good incentive to keep going. When you get discouraged, stop and think about your family. Nothing will rally you like thinking of your family that's counting on you. I can feel beat to a pulp and ready to throw in the towel, but I've got a wife who's dependent on me to keep on going. I've got a son, they sung here just a moment ago, I can call him and feel the smile through the phone and he looks up to me and I've got to keep going for his sake. I have a precious daughter. Who is a witty and creative and quick on her feet and I just love being around her and and for her sake I'll keep going I have a son who's a hard worker and works long hours and for his sake I'll keep going I have a redhead and every family needs one of those amen and I love sitting next to her and I don't have to talk much she does it and Just enjoy her so much in her company and for her sake I'll keep going I have a little brunette who looks like me and adores her dad and for her sake I I'll keep going." Your family, will that keep you going, sir? Will that keep you on the right track? Think of the little eyes or the eyes that are on you and counting on you to keep on going. And Nehemiah said, let's get the families together here. And for your family's sake, get that wall built. Get back to it. Don't worry, God's in this thing. Nothing will unify you like getting around your family. You know, we've had floods at our place, several of them, and they become family projects, or remodeling projects, and do it for your family's sake. And maybe you don't have a family, but you have a church family if you're part of Fargo Baptist Church. We're in this thing together, and we can keep on going for the sake of each other. Notice in verse 14, he says, and I looked and rose up and said unto the nobles and to the rulers and to the rest of the people, be not afraid of them. Remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses." Notice those three words in the middle of the verse. Remember the Lord. Remember the Lord. They've been looking at that rubbish up to that point, and they've forgotten the Lord. They've gotten their eyes off the Lord. Now, it sounds good if we say, well, remember the Lord. I like that. It's a neat cliche. But what does it really mean to remember the Lord? It's one thing for me to say, keep on going, remember the Lord, but what do we mean by that? How can we remember the Lord when we get discouraged? You know, we had a preacher through here years ago, Dr. Richard Hayes. Love him like a few men in this world and probably one of the greatest, I'd say one of the top three greatest Christians I know. And he taught this church something that we call the stroke file. Remember that? Maybe I should reteach that sometime. But basically, keeping a stroke file of things you're grateful for. You know, gratitude overcomes so many things in life. Pride and selfishness and discouragement and other things. But basically, just writing down throughout the day things that you are thankful for. Keeping a stroke file. That's one way to remember the Lord. Another way to remember the Lord is to remember His promises. This book is full of promises. I could stand here for a month of Sundays and give you thousands of them. But here's one. Isaiah 26. says thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee. That is a promise from the Lord. As we remember the Lord, we remember that he'll keep us in perfect peace if we quit worrying about everything around us and keep our mind stayed on him. Here's another promise. Philippians 4.6 says, That's another promise. So when we remember the Lord, we remember promises like this. And so many like it. Now the devil is going to attack us, no question about that. And we need to be able to claim the promises. We need to remember the Lord, remember His person, not just His promises, but His person, His greatness, His majesty, His creativity. I thank the Lord every morning and praise the Lord for His creativity. I never get tired of a full moon. I never get tired of a placid Minnesota lake and the clear blue waters and the pine trees around it and the golden sand and everything that God has created. What a God we serve. Remember His person. In Deuteronomy 32. Moses said, I will publish the name of the Lord. Ascribe ye greatness unto our God. Ascribe ye greatness unto our God. Nehemiah said, what are you doing looking at the rubbish? Get your eyes back on the Lord. Plain and simple. Now, there's a third thing that Nehemiah does here, and I call it keeping a balance. He kept a balance. In fact, he pictured the whole thing, and then he has this plan. Notice what he does in verse 15. It says, And it came to pass, when our enemies heard that it was known unto us, and God had brought their counsel to naught, that we returned all of us to the wall, everyone unto his work. And it came to pass from that time forth, that the half of my servants wrought or worked in the work, And the other half of them held both the spears, the shields, the bows, and the Habergians, and the rulers were behind all the house of Judah." Notice the balance he had here. He keeps on working with half the people, and he sets the guard with the other half. I talked about this earlier today, I won't re-preach it. The faith without the works being dead. Notice verse 17. That's the Christian life, folks. Holding a weapon and continuing to work. You know, we need balance in the Christian life. There are those who claim to be born again Christians that have become what we would call new evangelicals, where they have basically gotten rid of the biblical separation that God lays out, and the standards that God lays out, and have meshed with the world, and act like the world, and talk like the world, and live like the world, and really the last thing the world needs is another imitation of itself. But they're imitating the world. And that's an extreme. But then there are those, on the other hand, who have become so contentious in contending for the faith, as Jude tells us to do, that they become gadflies and irritable people and basically nasty, mean people. Well, we ought to be building as we're battling. And we find that there's a balance here in the book of Nehemiah. And in the history of the Fargo Baptist Church, we've stood by the old book. And we have not compromised, we have contended for the faith, and yet we have been building lives. Building and battling. It's a great balance, it really is. We baptized a dear lady here a few weeks ago in the baptistry behind me, and I'll never forget her testimony that night as she was talking about how somebody had given her a track at work, and she came to church, and she got saved in time, and how God has used this church to just change her life. And that is such a blessing to hear, it really is. Battling, building. Nehemiah has a balance. We find it. Well, in verses 18 through 23, we basically find out that Nehemiah just kept serving. He didn't lick his wounds. He just kept on going. And the final thing that we need to do as far as a needful prescription is to just realize nobody's immune to discouragement, but we are instructed of our Lord to continue no matter what. In Acts 13.43, it tells us many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. What I am doing today has been going on for millenniums. And God's men have been persuading and encouraging God's people. Notice that word, continue. To continue in the grace of God. You started out that way, right, at salvation? Will you finish that way? Will you continue in the grace of God? No one is immune to discouragement. It's like a plague that comes in uninvited into our lives. And yet we read in 1 Peter 1.13, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. I love that verse. It tells us to gird up the loins of our mind and hope to the end. I like that. You know, there will be an end to all this. That day is coming when we'll die and go on to heaven, or even before then, the Lord Jesus Christ could come back. It talks here about the revelation of Christ Jesus, but it tells us here to hope until the end. Are you a hopeful person? Are you a person that says, it'll get better, just keep on going? I mean, there's relief around the corner, keep on going. Years ago there were a bunch of traveling minstrels in England and they were singing minstrels and kind of had a little act that they put on night after night. But times were tough in England and the crowds were dwindling down and people just couldn't pay to come to their performances much. And so for several weeks they basically had been performing to just a handful of people. On one particular night, it was really stormy out, it was raining, and crowds had been low, but they'd really be low tonight, and so they were very, very discouraged at the thought of getting out there and performing, and really about to cancel the thing when the leader of the group got them together and he said, you know, fellas, people who do come tonight are paying good money to come, and they're gonna come expecting us to do our very best, and we really dare not shortchange them by just kind of winging it, and so, fellas, let's just get out there and do our very best. And so they did. In fact, they put on the best performance, perhaps, they had ever put on. And there were a handful of people there, and light collapsed when it was all over, and the tent emptied out afterwards. And they said, well, fellas, at least we did our best. And the doorman came up to the leader of the minster group and handed him something at the end of the performance. And the leader read it, and he said, fellas, wait a minute, you're not going to believe this. Let me read it to you. It simply says, thank you. for a beautiful performance signed your king. Your king. The king of England was there that night. Thank God they did their very best. Well, we have a king much greater than the king of England, don't we? We're accountable to him. Should we do any less than our best? Now we're going to face discouragement, it's inevitable. There's going to be those negative people, there's going to be those natural promptings, but we need that needful prescription that Nehemiah put into practice when that discouragement came. God help us, by His grace, to apply that which we've heard. Amen? You've been listening to Pastor Tony Skeving of the Fargo Baptist Church in Fargo, North Dakota. If you would like a CD of today's message, you can obtain one by sending a gift of $2 to Fargo Baptist Church, 3303 23rd Avenue South, Fargo, North Dakota, 58103. That address again, Fargo Baptist Church, 3303 23rd Avenue South Fargo, North Dakota 58103. We hope you'll join Pastor Skeving next time right here on Pulpit Power. Pulpit Power is a production of Heaven 88.7.