In this sermon, the preacher discusses the different types of people who may feel discouraged in life. He mentions those who are captive to their work, family responsibilities, or physical limitations. The preacher emphasizes that even in captivity, God can reveal Himself and His word to individuals. He encourages believers to continue their witness in a fallen world, reminding them that they are called to be good men and women in a bad world. The preacher also addresses teachers, urging them to persevere in teaching the Word of the Lord to even the most restless and wiggling children. He concludes by referencing the writings of Dr. Jesus and the example of the apostle Paul, highlighting the importance of God's presence and the need to trust in His will.

To read from two passages, two parts of the scriptures, one from Joshua 1.9, the Lord says, Have not I commanded thee? And of a good courage. Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed. For the Lord thy God is with us wherever thou goest. Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, and be of a good courage. Then to Romans 21, Behold, the Lord thy God has set the land before thee. Go up and possess it. As the Lord has said unto thee, Fear not, neither be discouraged. Now if I wanted to, I could have called this morning's talk, The Causes and the Cure of Discouragement. And I begin by telling you that I am speaking today, the Christian's worst enemy, or at least one of the very worst enemies the Christian can have. It is an enemy and a bad enemy, not because it is the greatest really, but because it's the greatest nuisance. Its value to the devil is very great, because it is very sized as being an enemy, and it works when other temptations can't work and wouldn't work. A person who would scornfully dismiss a temptation to physical sin, go along with this enemy of his soul we call discouragement. To talk about discouragement as a mood, as a sort of a climate, and show the causes of it, and the cure. Now to begin with, a discouragement is a mood. That is, it's an internal climate. It is a ruling emotion. The person who is discouraged is not a coward, but he has for the moment lost his courage, and it becomes a very painful thing. He feels it, which can be and often is very distressing. But it goes on past being an emotion, it becomes position, and it goes past that and becomes an outlook and an attitude. There are people who are permanently discouraged. They have a discouraged look on their face, the tone of their voices is discouraged, their voice is flat and dead. Not many, thank God, but a few. They're even too discouraged to commit suicide. They're just too discouraged to do anything about it. They're somehow or other, if you can call what they're doing, living. Now that is, we find a great many places. But it ought not to be in the church, and I want to point out the causes of it, and I want to point out the cure for a little climate or a spiritual climate. This combination of outlook and disposition and emotion comes a climate, and a discouraged climate, nothing much can grow in it. If you go to some parts of the world, you will find bananas and oranges and avocados and bougainvillea. And friends here just came back from Florida, and it's a nice suntan, and no doubt they saw all those things down there. Well, now you don't see them up at Muskoka, because the climate up there isn't favorable. It's favorable to some things that don't grow in Florida. But Florida's favorable to things that don't. So there are certain things that just won't grow in a discouraged heart, and not only that, the heart itself won't grow. The mood, the climate, the prevailing feeling, the attitude, the outlook, the expectation or lack of it, all combine to make the... And where there is this discouraged or defeated sort of... Some plants just can't grow. Joy can't grow. The Lord's people ought to be, as I've said many times, a joyful people, but joy won't grow in the cold, gloomy, damp climate of discouragement. Neither will power grow there. You never saw a man that had any power of any sort, moral or spiritual. And there can be no effective activity. There are some churches that discouragement has the prevailing mood. They come to church discouraged, they sing their hymns discouragedly, they give a discouraged fight, they listen to a discouraged sermon, and they go home discouraged. And of course nothing grows, there is nothing there, there can't grow. Their activity is... What there is of activity has got to be an effective, and their power, what power? Spiritual power. And then this same mood that favors, or that does not favor, the joy and power and effective activity, it favors certain noxious plants. Certain plants that may be, but they are, such as fear, the discouraged person is afraid. That's what the word means. Courage means not afraid, and discourage makes it the opposite, so that it's not, there's no courage there. And so fear takes itself, pity, you just you just shout at the average discouraged man, he'll break down, and cry, be not because of the world, but because he's pitying himself. And self-engrossment, the discouraged person is utterly wrapped up in himself, that the man who wrapped up in himself is satisfied with a pretty small package. And this discouraged, self-engrossing attitude toward life, it isn't good, and the children of God shouldn't, shouldn't have it at all. They should be that. Now discouragement is more prevalent than you know. The Sunday school superintendent, if the attendance is down, about it, and that's discouragement. The pastor, when the crowd falls off a little Sunday, he's discouraged about it. And their teacher, if his class doesn't come up, he feels discouraged about it. And we're discouraged. We look the people over carefully, and wonder if they're last week, and we feel discouraged if they're not. Now this discouragement, this sense of defeatism, and this blue feeling, doesn't come to old people only, nor to young people only. It comes to both young age, it comes to the sober, it comes to the radiant, it comes to the lofty, it comes to the practical, it comes to the poetic, it comes to the pedestrian. It is universal. It's like the common cold, everybody's likely to get it, but I hope nobody needs to get it. Honestly, a lot of you, if we were to, if we had some sort of fluoroscope affair, such as the doctors have, so compelled to walk in front of it, and have everybody else look on, it'd be, it would be really annoying to see how many of the Lord's people are discouraged in times like these. If that fluoroscope could show the little lumps we call discouraged spirit, there's a lot of them there. Now, there are causes for discouragement. The curse doesn't come causeless, and the blessing doesn't come causeless. The only thing I know that has no cause is change of women's fashions. I can't imagine what that's about. I have never seen any reason for that. Everything has a cause, and it's, you can trace the cause, you might be able to find the cure. Well, I want to go to the Bible for my example, so you will know that I'm not just combing this out of my own head. But, of loneliness, there was a man one time by the name of Elijah. And Elijah lacked the supported souls. If you, if, if you have the support of others, you're not so likely to become discouraged. But Elijah didn't talk. I may be talking to some people, you have not one grain or trace of help back home. You haven't anybody around. Most of you, I would say, come from Christian homes, where somebody's sympathetic with your spiritual intentions, but a lot of people come only one Christian. The Lord told us about that. And so that this, the, the temptation is to become discouraged about this. And the truer the soul, the truer and the more loyal to God, the more likely the soul is to become discouraged. It's so great, because what they, the way they want to see, between what they want to see and what is, and the higher the ideals that we set, the poorer it'll be, it'll be. And the more likely we will be to become discouraged. The ballplayer that sees them and says, if I can hit 200, I'll be all right. That is, if I can get one time, every time I, every, I come to bat, if I can get two hits, I'll be satisfied. He's not likely to be discouraged, be discouraged, because all get two hits out of ten. But if he's got his mindset on being a 400 hitter, he's not likely to make very few, none in the last several ten or twelve years. And of course, there'll be a sense of discouragement. The ideal is we fail, then we plunge into despondency, because our ideal has been high. Why, the man without ideals is... Browning talked about a finished and finite clod, uncoupled by a spark. And you never heard of a discouraged cow, tented cow. The cow that is contented with being a cow, and that's why she's a cow, and that's why she'll stay a cow, because she's a cow. I'd just like to write a little book or a little short story sometime. Imaginative piece about the cow that determines she wouldn't make it, but she sure would be an interesting cow. And you have high ideals, and you don't make it. Well, now what's the answer to that? Well, the answer is based upon, of course, it is this sense of loneliness, this feeling that there's nobody else that's longing after God, nobody else. The error lies in this, that there are thousands of others like you. When Elijah went into that tailspin and said, lay, take me away, and you know I've got, I warn people, be careful about getting, pouting and going to die. Elijah asked to die. He didn't die, but he went out of this world. God took him home. He took him out of here. And the one in the scriptures, where when a man asks to die, the Lord let him. So you'll be careful about that. You know, you might say to your husband, I might as well be dead, but if you think about it, only buy you some candy. But if you, if you seriously talk like that to God, he may just take you at your word. And there'll be something over you telling about your virtues, forgetting that the Lord took you home because you were too discouraged to live. Well, there are a lot of people in the world that are just as bad off as you are. Just as bad off as you. I sometimes go to hospitals and places and see people with tubes down their noses and, and their leg in traction, and I'm not exactly what you'd call athletic. I get around and I don't have a tube in my nose and I, I, I walk awkwardly, but that's natural to me. It isn't because anything wrong with my leg. You're better off than you think. I'd advise some of you to go, if you're worried about your IQ, go to a home for a reason. Or if the feeble-minded, and boy, you'll feel like a million when you come out of there, you'll say, why, there's other people a lot worse than I am, sure. And your spiritual state, your spiritual condition, you're a lot better off. And you ought to be thankful to God every hour for all the friends and all the people there are in all the world that are, that are no worse off than you. Loneliness is desire to be comforted. Nobody around to rub your head and comfort you, and so you feel bad. Let's get over that. Let's remember Paul said, took me, and then he said, just a minute, he said to the Manuensis, Manuensis started away, and he said, come back here, he said, add this sentence, nevertheless the, he wrote that on the end, he said, everybody left me, said Paul, and said, here, put this down. Nevertheless, the Lord stood with me. It's always so, for his people. Then there's a second cause of discouragement, and that is the wickedness of the people, and that was Jeremiah. Jeremiah said he wished his head was a fountain of tears. He just wished that the top would come off, and salty tears would begin to flow, and he could just sit there like a fountain all the time. He got tired of talking to no purpose. He preached and nobody listened. He exhorted and nobody obeyed. He cried and nobody wanted to be helped, and the man of God, being a good man on earth, trying to live in a bad world, he got scourged, and he wanted to go away and dwell in the howling wilderness and be away from people. He wanted to get out among the beasts. He said, they're people. Well, now what's the answer to this? Well, I'll tell you this about Jeremiah. If Jeremiah had known, he knows now, he'd have gone around with a smile on his face right in the midst of all that iniquity, because though Jeremiah, how long ago did Jeremiah live? Let's see here if I can find it. He lived way back there 600 years before Christ, that's 2,600 years ago nearly. And for 2,600 years, Jeremiah's book has been blessing mankind. Now, if Jeremiah had known that, he would have been discouraged. He gave his testimony and it seemed to fall on stony ground. But it didn't. It fell to soil, because that fruitful soil has brought forth fruit that 2,600 years has blessed. I repeat, so you keep your testimony bright, and keep living for God, and don't get discouraged because of the wickedness of the people. Aren't you? Or tend to be a little bit blue, because Toronto the good is rapidly becoming Toronto the bad? They blame it on America. You don't know. I didn't bring any of them with me. But none of them followed me either. But whoever's doing it, they didn't pass those laws permitting them to have so. They didn't do that. People just getting bad. That's all the world is getting bad. And nice places that you, to have reputation. And Canada's being a moral country all over the world ever since she's been a country. But she's learning to do evil things too. It's a disease all over the world. It's spread all over the world, and there's no place where wickedness is not thriving. So if you're in the midst of wickedness, don't be discouraged about it. Our Lord walked among evil men, and they were wicked. But Jesus lived, and gave himself, and did his work, and said, the work which thou gavest me to do. And Paul said, I have finished my course. It's possible to live and do your most unlikely conditions. Jeremiah's testimony went on, and still going on, and we're still taking consolation from Jeremiah. And if Jeremiah could have known twenty-six hundred years ago, twenty-six hundred years later, in a land he'd never heard of, among the people totally different from him, a man would stand and use Jeremiah as an example of courage, and a fruit in the midst of discouragement, or at least discouraging conditions. He just smiled, and said, Lord, I don't want my head to become a fountain of tears. I want to rejoice and praise thee. So remember, you can continue to praise God, be a testimony, and live your life, and the Lord will see that not one of your tears will be anything less than immortal, and not one of your die. For God keeps your prayers in his bottle up yonder. I used to think that when people died, their prayers died. So no more. The prayers of a man are kept up yonder, not on ice, but they're kept before the throne of God. Keep all my tears in thy bottle. Then the third reason that I want to give you for discouragement, the climate, is captivity. A man named Ezekiel, he was a priest, the son of Buzi, the tribe of Levi, and he was among the captives, and he was by the River Kebar, and he was sitting there in complete, complete despondency. He was captive, and he was discouraged because he was a captive. His nation had dissolved around him. His flag had been pulled down. He was now at the mercy of a great and brutal nation whose language he couldn't speak. There are a lot of people that are captive. You may smile at this, but it's very real, and there are times when it gets to become that we don't smile. There's that housewife. She wants to get married so bad when she's a young girl. She thinks, you know, there's nothing but roses, and nice houses, and a big car. But she finds that they're children, and they're lovely little fellows, but they can be terribly hard on your nerves. And the worst part is away from them. They're there, and you brought them. And the Lord may have sent them, but you were there, and you brought them. There they are, and your husband's off at work, and they're in your hands, and you're not rich enough to have a governess. And so everything to them. And though they're angels, they have a strange way of acting as if they'd come from another direction. And captivated, you're, I mean, in the wrong sense. You're bound. It's all right for a day or two. Maybe put up with it, and tell jokes about it, and kid and say, oh, they were terrible. But when it's, there's no end to it. Week follows week, and week follows week, follows another week, and that runs into a month, and months runs into years. And you're still captive. Captive to the vacuum cleaner, and your children, and blowing noses, and combing hair that doesn't stay combed, and washing faces at evening, and pulling them down off of places where they've been climbing. After a while you feel, oh Lord, why did I get married? A slave, I'm bound. Now you won't say it. If you're a Christian, you won't say it, but it gets in your system. Doesn't it now? Haven't I described some of you? You've never told your husband this, and the great big lug doesn't know it. He doesn't know how you feel to this day. He thinks, he thinks that they're wonderful, and he comes home, you have on a clean apron, and supper's ready. Oh boy, he thinks, what a wonderful wife. But you've been home discouraged. Well, then there are workmen that are discouraged. Go to, go to work to the whistle, and quit that. You're pretty much of a, and a little straw boss that isn't worth that. Telling, pushing you around, telling you what to do. And a fella just out of, brother-in-law or the son-in-law of the big boss, sitting at a desk looking you over, as though you belong to the proletariat, and he belongs to the proletariat. Well, it's not so nice, but you got it to do. You say to yourself, I'm gonna quit, I won't take that from this fella. And then you remember your, and you say, if I quit now, I can't get another job. If I quit now, I'm finished. You know, sediments to make you live to be ninety, and then when you're 45, they say, I won't hire you, because you're too old. But they're discouraged, because they're captive to their work. Then there's the family man. I remember when we were, our children were coming along, you know, just coming after the other, just as if they didn't want to break the rhythm. And one little boy'd bounce in, and then we'd barely get him straightened around. Another little boy, six of them had bounced in. And I remember one time lying in bed, and I awoke with an awful scar of deep fear. Thought that something would happen to me, and my boys, my wife would be left with nobody to look after my boy. Be tough. I remember going through that heartache for a while there. I never told anybody, but how I suffered worrying about those boys. But I was captive to those boys. Captivity, but it was captivity nevertheless. So we get captive to things, and there are shut-ins, and there are lame people, and we're captive. Ezekiel was a captive. But do you know what happened to Ezekiel when he was captive there? Suddenly heavens were opened in the name of God, and the word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel, and the hand of the Lord was heavy upon him. It wasn't that he was all walking in the midst of a flowery garden, but it was when he was captive. Remember that as long as you live, you'll belong to a minority group. Always remember that as long as you live, your candidate won't last. Always remember that the law you'd like to see passed, you'll get defeated. Always remember that the thing you'd like to see be done, because the country isn't in the hands of Saints. It's in the hands of Adam's fallen race. All countries are. And you as a Christian build all together, and your ideal is to bring in the kingdom of God down to men. But it doesn't come down like that now. It waits on the Christ the Lord. When he comes, whose right it is to reign, then the will of the Lord will be done on earth as it is in heaven, but not now. We're going to have to remember that, and look up and see whether the heavens won't be opened in the midst of your captivity. Then it says, "...discouraged our hearts." That was in Israel in the days of Ezra. Our brethren discouraged our hearts. A bunch of them got together, or just a bunch that were unintentionally, just without purpose, had met together. And each one looked so gloomy that each one looked at the other one and felt, it's as gloomy as that in the world, things must be in bad shape. So they gloomily looked at each other, and slowly each took on the other's gloomy outfit. Timid, pessimistic brethren always infect the crowd. When a pastor was bored with some forward look, wants to go somewhere, usually there are a few old deacons who have seen things as they were, so long they don't think they can be otherwise than what they have been. And the concept of just won't enter their poor old heads, and so they drag their blessed feet till the toes are worn out of their shoes, dragging their feet. I've been preaching a long time, and I've literally gone ahead dragging the feet of people. More people have dragged their feet. And we wanted to build a new church one time where I was, and we foolishly promised the congregation that we wouldn't take any steps without consent. So when we'd get a new set of blueprints or something, we'd call a congregational meeting. And the result was, you know, there'd be some pessimistic brother who couldn't see it. Somebody said, if you build a new church, your missionary offering will fall off. You build a new church, that will happen. So I went before the people one time, and I said, will you please release us of our vow? Now we're getting nowhere fast. And I'd like a motion to put in the hands of the board and the building committee, all commit you. All in favor say aye. Everybody said aye, you know, just too lazy to say anything else. Thought it through, but they just said aye, and we were free. We had our church in very short order, almost immediately. But we'd still, but it hadn't been, we got free. We got, they got the old boys with their toad dragon, got them off, or an ex, excuse my confused image. But that's what we got. Now, the timid gloomy brethren often cause the true Christian. I don't think we ought to be always smiling, really don't. When a fellow smiles too consistently, I wonder about his men. But there ought to be a, there ought to be what, what a great English electrographer and Brunson called, did he call it about Wesley? He said, he said he found in John Wesley the most perfectly immoral happiness that he'd ever seen anywhere. High moral happiness. And there ought to be in the people of God, high morals and giggling. They don't necessarily have to be the kind that are always laughing, but they're at least cheerful and hopeful and optimistic. And outlook's wonderful. You don't know what you do for a man. You don't know what you'll do for this little man behind me. If you call him sometime of saying that you felt we shouldn't have sung number nine, that was a poor choice, or the usher was just as courteous to me, or something. If you'd say, oh brother Gray, you don't know what yesterday's service did for me. I'm, I would just bless and lift it up, found a little bit of a hopefulness and see what it'll do for preachers. Absolutely. I get letters occasionally that tell me that I said like that, but the general import of it is that I never should have been born. And if I had, if it had to be, then I should have done it. But I get letters also that tell me other things and they cheer me up, really. They help me a lot. I don't want your letters now, I don't mean on that. I'm just saying that you can help a man by being careful. Then fifth, and the only last one I'm going to mention, the encouragement is reading about the exploits of the saints of old. You say, well I'd think that'd be very encouraging. Well, it is and it isn't. If you want to read a biography, simply as literature, I suppose it's encouraging. But if you're a serious-minded Christian, it's like bad. Because you see, everything that's good about them was put into the biography, and everything that wasn't so good out. So you get the idea that here at last was born the perfect man. And then you compare yourself with him, or if I'm even a Christian. It's not good, brethren, not good. Because a photographer usually takes the warts off, and if there's a cast in the eye, he straightens the eyes. And if the fella had a stoop, he straightens the man. And everything that was wrong with his idol, he straightens out before he prints his book. And the result is, the average biography, just not so. Things in it that are true, but the general tenor of it's not true, because all we found out about the good man was how good he was. The Bible isn't that kind of a book. Wherever the Bible gives us biography, it gives us both sides. It says David was a good God's heart, but David walked on the roof one day and saw Bathsheba. It shows both sides, and I can read the life of David and not be discouraged. It tells us that Jacob wrestled with the Lord all night, but it also tells us that Jacob was a crooked man, and that he didn't cheat, but he came pretty close to cheating his father-in-law out of a lot of cattle. So when I read the Bible, I see the good and the bad. I see the light and the shade. I see that he could be a saint, but also he had, he was a man of like passion. Christian biographies, faith papers written by the man's wife. I say, oh God help me, I'm, I'm awful. I'll never be a saint here. Where was his humanity? Where was his humanhood? He must have had the blood of Archangel circulating in his veins, and I got the blood of Adam. I'm reading two things now. I'm reading two things, one of them is the life of Hoodfield. Man, when you read the life of Hoodfield, don't read it, Brother Gray, if you haven't read it, you get older and can take it. That man, that man, what a, what a saint, what a, what a man he was. I think it's wonderful if I preach four or five times a week, and he preached four or five times a day. And then I'm all the letters of Samuel Rutherford. And when I read Samuel Rutherford's radiant, wonderful descriptions of Jesus, I have not felt that. But I settled it one day and took some notes. I'm going to write on it. I settled it one day. Oh God, I'm not but I'm thy child. I don't love thee as much as Rutherford evidently did, but I love thee more than I used to. Appreciation of him every day. So instead of letting these great men discourage me, I'm going to thank God. If I can only stand under their and I'm not going to let them discourage me. If I can't preach to tens of thousands, I can preach to some of the best. So I'm not going to be discouraged by reading about good people. They had their times too when they weren't so good. When they weren't so optimistic, they might got a little blue too, but the point is don't, don't give away to it. And beside that, were as great as they are supposed to have been. They're dead. And a living dog's better than the dead lion, says in the Proverbs. And people come up to me, you know, to compare me with Dr. Simpson and it's embarrassing because I don't compare. That great Canadian preacher was for the world in his day, you know, great preacher. But, uh, Dr. Simpson is dead and I am alive. No longer preach. That silver voice is silent and my gravelly voice is still able to be heard. Discouraged because I am not as great as Dr. Simpson. I'm just going to keep right on giving my witness till the Lord comes. Then anything that depends on a dead man's got to fail. Anything. Lord can't say, Dr. Simpson, I want you to go to Toronto and preach to the people. But he could say it to me. He couldn't say it to a man who's sleeping the sleep of the just. But he can say it to the fight of the just. Still alive and able to talk. Amen. Well, I want to read a passage of scripture here too, for you. 50th of Isaiah. For the Lord God will help me. Therefore shall I know him. Therefore, have I set my face like a flint and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is near that justifies me with me. Let us stand together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me now. Behold, the Lord, who is he that shall condemn me? Lo, they all shall wax old as does a garment and the moth shall eat them up. That's your enemy, your enemy. And under the kind wing of God, you'll peek out and see a moth eating your enemy. God will look after that. So I would encourage you this morning. I would ask you to get your chin up elevated a little bit and be grateful and thankful to God. And remember that they've got at the right hand of the father pleading for you by a name. And God always hears a prayer of his son. And so no matter how things well for you, everything's going all right in your father's house. There's a little colored song. I used to hear them sing sometimes everything's all right in my father's house. There is joy, joy, joy. Everything's all right in my father's house. We're living in a miserable mix. Oh, part good, part bad, mostly bad in and out and up and down changeable as the weather, a world of iniquity. And we're called to be good men and women in a bad world to witness to God among the men who don't want to hear about him. Stay here and give that witness till he calls us home. Let's do it. Let's continue to do it. Let's keep right on. You teachers who your class, all they do is wiggle. Keep on teaching them. God almighty who made them and put the wiggle in and build it in. He'll see they get, you'll be surprised in a serious moment how much they're learning. They wiggle and bring bugs to Sunday school class, you know, and all sorts. And you think, oh, I might as well quit. Don't quit brother. Get on your knees and thank God that you're able to preach and teach the word of the Lord all right. And I want to read a hymn written by the same man I talked about, Dr. Oh troubled soul beneath the rod, thy father speaks, be still, be still, learn to be silent and be moldy to his will. Oh anxious soul lay down thy load. Oh hear his voice, he speaks to thee. Beast, I am God and cast thy every care on me. Oh fearful soul be still, be still, be of good cheer as he has said I hear no will, tis I, tis I be not afraid. Oh praying soul be still, be still, he cannot break his, sink down into his blessed will and wait in patience on the Lord. Oh waiting soul be still, be strong, and though he wait, doubt not, he will not wait too long, fear not, he will not come too late. Be still, oh troubled heart, be father's arms enfold thee. Take up thy cross, lay down thy will, be silent unto God and let him be in cheerful hopefulness. Rise from your knees with a good optimistic outlook and let your soul be cheerful, hopeful, filled with faith and expectation. And the little flowers that couldn't come out before will begin to come out. In our little crocuses begin to grow. Oh they're more than growing, they're blooming. They will weather change a little, not much, but a little. And if you'll get a change of internal weather, you'll find the little Sharon will begin to bloom inside you, inside your heart, you'll be fragrant. And the people will turn their noses your direction and sniff and say where's that sweet fragrance coming? And it'll be you. Because you've cultivated a right spirit.