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[silence] This is Glendale Presbyterian Church, People Moving Power. This tape includes the reading of scripture and a message by Reverend Mr. Bruce W. Thielman, titled "Love Story Part Four, The Secret to Defeating Discouragement."

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At the conclusion of side number one of this cassette, be sure to turn immediately to side number two for the remainder of the message. [silence] Let us continue in our worship by giving reverent attention to the reading of God's Word

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as it is recorded in the gospel according to Luke, the 19th chapter, beginning at the verse numbered 35. "And they brought the colt to Jesus, and throwing their garments on the colt, they set Jesus upon it. And as he rode along, they spread their garments on the road. As he was now drawing near at the descent of the Mount of Olives,

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the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, 'Blessed be the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.' And some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to him, 'Teacher, rebuke your disciples.'

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He answered, 'I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.' And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, 'Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes,

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for the day shall come upon you when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you and hem you in on every side and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you,

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because you did not know the time of your visitation.'" And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his holy word. Let us pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

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Amen. One day, Robbie Burns was out plowing. And as his plow went through the soft brown earth of his native Scotland, he chanced with the plow to cut through the nest of a little gray field mouse.

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He went home that night and, sitting by a lamplight, philosophized on the event. And out of his thinking came these lines, which have since become immortal. "The best laid schemes, O mice and men, gang aft aglay,

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let us not but grief and pain for promised joy." Well, have you ever felt like that? As if your best laid plans and schemes and dreams and hopes had suddenly been plowed under by discouraging events?

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Have you ever felt the slap of setback in your life, or are you feeling it now? If you do feel it, you certainly stand in a noble company. Job was a fine and an upright man, a man who had great wealth, a wonderful family. His life was full of the things he loved, and then all of a sudden, the plow.

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And he lost it all. And sitting amongst the ashes of his happiness in deep discouragement, he cries out, "My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle and are spent without hope." Now that is the sob of discouragement.

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If you know what it is to be discouraged or have known it, shake hands with Job. Or what about Moses, the greatest leader that Israel ever produced, a mighty man by every standard of measurement? He takes a rabble out of slavery in Egypt and leads them across the wilderness.

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And halfway across, these people begin to complain about the burdens of being free. They long for the fish and cucumbers of Egypt once more. And under the weight of their constant moaning and groaning, he feels the plow of discouragement, and he cries out, "Why have you afflicted me? I am not able to bear these people.

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They are just too heavy for me." Now you see, that is the cry of discouragement. So if you know what it is to be discouraged, shake hands with Moses. Or how about a spiritual powerhouse like Elijah?

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On one afternoon, he does in 450 of the priests and prophets of Baal. He thinks he has purified the country, and in a matter of days, Jezebel, the pagan queen, has the upper hand once more. All of his plans have gone to naught.

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He hurries out into the wilderness, and there he falls on the ground and pleads, "Oh Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers." That's the plow of discouragement, and his response, if you feel discouraged, shake hands with Elijah.

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Or what about Jeremiah? Or David? Or Ezekiel? Or Cleopas? Or Jesus? How else could you describe this scene which is before us in Scripture today? Here is a man who has devoted all his life to the proclamation of the gospel, and in the last three years of his life, has poured himself every hour of every day

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into winning his people, winning his land to the God who was his father, and their father too. And now, knowing the cross is just ahead, a matter of days away, he approaches the capital city of his land, the center of his dreams,

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the place that he wanted to win, and as he comes to the brow of the hill looking out over the city, he weeps and says, "Would that even today you knew the things that made for peace, but now, now it is hopeless. They are hid from your eyes."

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Jesus was feeling the plow. So if you are discouraged, get on your knees and take the hand of Jesus too. You see, the sob of discouragement is the sob of every man whose lips have never parted to omit that cry.

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Which one of us has never known what it is to be discouraged? It's not a very exclusive club, but it is a very expensive club, because discouragement costs. And I want to share with you four secrets that defeat discouragement

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so that you won't have to pay too high a price. And the first secret is this. Take a short look at your discouragement. Now the accent in that sentence is on the word "short."

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Don't major on your minors. Don't focus on your failures. Don't accentuate the negative in yourself. You know, we have an old saying, it's very true, "Birds of a feather flock together." Well, if the raven of discouragement roosts in you, don't feed it,

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because it won't be long until he has brought with himself other discouragements and one discouragement at a time is quite enough with which to deal. Do take some look at your discouragement, but only a short look. Now the reason that you take any look at all is this.

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You've got to admit that you are discouraged. It's very important to admit that you feel the way you feel. There are some people you know who try to conceal their feelings, bottle them up inside, and as a result, they are worse off

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than they would have been in the first place. There are some Christians, for example, who think that it is somehow sub-Christian to be discouraged, forgetting, you see, that Jesus at times had a spirit that groaned within him,

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that Jesus wept in discouragement and disappointment. Well, if Jesus knew discouragement, we're going to know it too, and the first thing we have to do is take a quick look at it to admit that it's there and take a quick look at it also to realize that in most instances

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that which discourages us is not our fault. I can't emphasize this strongly enough. Haven't you heard people say when they're in the midst of some discouraging circumstance, "Oh, what did I do to deserve this?"

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When they say that, of course, they're suggesting that there's some dark and guilty and heinous thing in themselves and they're being punished by God. That is rarely the case.

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It certainly wasn't the case with Job or Elijah or Jesus, those cases we've already noted. It wasn't the case then and it isn't the case most times. Don't you remember that scene in Matthew

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when Jesus says to his disciples, "Now you heard about those Galileans who were murdered. "Do you think they were more evil than other Galileans? "I tell you, no.

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"You heard about that tower down in Siloam "that fell and killed 18 different people. "Do you think that those 18 people were more evil than other people "and that was the reason that they were killed?"

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Jesus says, "I tell you, no." The disciples come to him with a blind man and they say, "Master, why is this man blind? "Because he sinned or because his father sinned?"

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There's the whole idea, you see, this old and very poor theology that if you know discouragement, somehow or other, you've done something to anger God and he's batting you for it. "Who did it, Lord, this man or his father

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"that he suffers the discouragement of blindness?" And Jesus says, "It wasn't this man and it wasn't his father." Take a quick look at your discouragement. It might be caused by you. It might be your own fault.

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That quick look will show it. If it isn't, straighten it out. But in most instances, you will discover that the discouragement you know in your life is not your own fault. So don't blame yourself for it.

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I say to you, in the name of the Son of God, it is dreadful enough to bear discouragement without burdening yourself with blame because of it. The other reason to take a short look at your discouragement is this.

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Because in almost every problem is the seed to its solution. So you want to get this discouragement up on the table where you can look at it, and if you've got some good Christian friends, let them look at it with you and poke it a few times

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till you find out how you can solve it. We'll talk about that more in a moment. But let me just sum this point by telling you a wonderful joke. You don't hear very many good jokes anymore.

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And this is really a funny joke. I think this is one of the funniest jokes I've ever heard. It's about a farmer who built a barn, and it burned down. So he built another wooden barn, and it blew down.

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So he had to have a barn, but he decided this time he would build a barn all of bricks. So he did. Brick from the bottom to the top. And when he got all done, he had one brick left over.

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The whole barn was finished, one brick left over. And he's standing there with this brick in his hand. Now, what do you think he did with that brick? I want you to get an idea in your mind now, see.

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Think, what did he do with the brick? Ready? He just threw it over his shoulder and walked away. You don't think it's funny?

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Well, I think it's very funny. I think it's a very good joke, as a matter of fact. When we run into discouragements, take a short look at them and throw them over your shoulder and walk away.

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That's what Jesus did there on the Mount. He didn't stay on the Mount weeping over Jerusalem. He went on. Now, the second thing you have to learn to do

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if you want to defeat discouragement is this. You have to take a narrow look at yourself. And by narrow, I mean this. Be prejudiced in your own favor.

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Accentuate those things in you which are strong. Thomas Edison, our greatest inventor, said this. "The function of the body is to carry the brain around." That's a good point.

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Use your brain and begin to accentuate those things in you which are still in your favor, even in the midst of the discouragement. Early in my ministry, I had a man come in to me and say one day that there was no reason for him to live,

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that everything had gone out of his life, that he had nothing. And three times in the course of the recitation of the discouragement, he said, "I have nothing. I have nothing. I have nothing." In those days, I used to take notes when I would counsel,

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and I got out a piece of paper and a pencil, and I said, "Well, now, you are a bachelor or your wife is dead." "Oh, no, my wife is fine. "As a matter of fact, I don't think I'd be able to get along without her.

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"She loves me very much." "Oh, well, then you had no children." "Yes, we have three boys." "They're all dead?"

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"No, as a matter of fact, two of them live here in town. "One lives quite a distance away. "We don't hear from him as often as we'd like, "but the other boys are around quite frequently."

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"Oh, your doctor has told you you have an incurable disease." "No, as a matter of fact, the doctor says that I'm healthy as a horse. "He can't figure out what the nature of my problem is because I am so healthy." I said, "When did you lose your job?"

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He said, "I haven't lost my job, "although I don't know if I'll be able to keep it much longer. "The way I feel, I'm so discouraged. "I can't work the way I ought to, but I still have my job,

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"and my company prizes me very--" "You've given up hope in America, then?" "No, no. "There are some things wrong with America that I'm concerned about,

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"but it's still the grandest land on earth, "and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else." "Well, then," I said, "you've lost your faith. "You've turned away from God. Is that it?"

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"Oh, no. "I wouldn't be here talking to you now if I had done that." I'd been writing all of this down, so I turned the sheet around, and I put it so that he could see it,

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and I said to him, "Now, you came in here, and you said you had nothing. "Three times you said, 'I have nothing, I have nothing, I have nothing.'" Now, look at that--wife and children and health and job. And we began to accentuate, and as he began to count up the things that he had

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and took a long look, and we made quite a list after that, he began to turn the corner from the discouragement which had been pushing him down. When it comes time to vote, vote for yourself.

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Take a narrow, prejudiced look in your own direction. That's a very biblical principle, just like the principle of taking a short look at difficulty is. I'll give you one biblical illustration.

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David was in a very discouraging moment. He was in the midst of a war, and there was a certain city he should have guarded, and he forgot to guard it, and while he was away, his enemies came in. They leveled the city, they took everything of value out of it,

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they even took many of the women and children who were there. And David was tremendously distraught because he had lost his city, he'd lost his own wife and some of his children to the enemy, so there was heartbreak in this also.

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His troops turned against him because some of their wives and children were there, and they knew this was a blunder on his part, and hurrahs turned to hisses.

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He was in a tremendously discouraging situation. So what did he do? 1 Samuel 30, it says, "And David encouraged himself in the Lord." Two parts to that sentence.

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He encouraged himself. He gathered together, he enumerated the things that were still in his behalf. "Why are you passed down, O my soul?" And then, as he tallied up the things which are still in his favor,

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the greatest one, of course, is the one that receives the most emphasis. He encouraged himself in the Lord. "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Hope thou in God."

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He still had God. "Count up the blessings which were yours." A few years ago, there was a man living down south who retired, and he was just a businessman,

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nothing particularly distinguished about his business or his place in it. And he happened to be sitting on his front porch in his rocking chair when the mailman came, and he walked down the walk to get the mail,

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and there in the mailbox was his first Social Security check. And suddenly, he was overcome with tremendous discouragement. "Is this what life is going to be from now on, just sitting on the front porch waiting for my Social Security check to come?"

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He was terribly despairing. So he decided that he'd vote in his own behalf, and so he sat down and he began to list the things he had going for him-- health and ability and ambition and desire and a willingness to work and friends.

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And he began to total all these things up-- a faith in God and, oh yes, he had something else. He had his mother's recipe for fried chicken that used 11 different herbs and spices.

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So he went to a nearby restaurant owned by one of these friends that were part of his asset, and he said, "Can I cook the chicken in your restaurant for a while?" And the friend said, "Yes."

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And pretty soon, the chicken was the most popular thing on the menu, and pretty soon he had his own restaurant. He had two or three, and three years ago he sold the chain of Colonel Sanders' Chicken Palaces

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for over $3 million and accepted a contract which pays him $100,000 a year until he dies just for making occasional public relations appearances. He was a man, you see, who in the midst of the discouragement

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took only a brief look at it and then began to take a narrow, prejudiced, altogether 100% favor and look at himself. And that's what made the difference. Jesus, when he went down from that mount into Jerusalem, went confident.

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He knew he was God's son. He knew the task that was set out before him. He knew that souls would be saved in Jerusalem that week and a whole world would be saved on Calvary that next Friday.

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And he went forth in the power that was his. And that's what we ought to do also. A third thing to do, take a long look at God and don't forget how much he loves you.

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Everyone who loves good gospel music was saddened a couple of weeks ago when Mahalia Jackson died. She's probably the greatest gospel singer of our time. She was born in New Orleans.

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Her father worked on the docks and preached on Sundays. Very poor. Didn't have much formal education, no musical education, whatever. Learned music by listening to it wafting across the waters

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from the big riverboats that pushed up and down the Mississippi. Of course, she started to sing herself and the rest is history. One of her records, "Move Up Higher on the Mountain," sold over 8 million copies.

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Well, she's gone now and those of us who love the sound of her voice will miss it. But also her philosophy will be missed unless other people take it up. Mahalia Jackson, who was a committed Christian, used to say, "You can be anything you want or do anything you want

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if you have the power of a made-up mind." And the thing on which Mahalia Jackson's mind was most made up was this, God loved her. We talk a lot about the values of having an open mind

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and there are values in having an open mind. But brothers and sisters, there are some things on which our minds ought to be closed. An open mind is not a virtue if it simply means you're so indiscriminate you don't know when to close it.

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An open mind is not a virtue if it's so open that everything that's good in it falls out. An open mind is no good if you don't have sufficient gumption to decide the things you want to hold and the things you want to give away. And one of the things we've got to hold on to is this,

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God loves you. Back in Hope College two weeks ago, a group of students were walking out of the chapel last night and they were stopping by to say kind things and encouraging things and giving me blessing.

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And one little girl came along and she had a rather long face and she was rather dumpy in the way she walked, you know. She kind of walked up and she looked up at me and she held out her hand and she said, "I'm just a nobody but I want to say," and I said, "Just a minute.

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Would you mind sitting right over here? I'd like to talk to you for a minute." After the other students have gone by and her eyes got about that big, you know. And she said, "Yes, I will." And she went over and she sat down and after the other students were out

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I walked over to her and I sat down and I said, "You know, you're not a nobody. Why, the very power of God is yours. You've been fashioned by God. All of glory is stored up for you.

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There's a mansion in the kingdom of heaven that has your name on it. And the Lord Jesus Christ climbed up on a cross just for you. You're not a nobody." And she smiled a very sweet smile.

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Well, I don't know whether it did any good or not. I told the chaplain about it and I'm sure he's still ministering to her. "But grab hold of that, won't you? There's not a person in this room at this moment who's a nobody.

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I'll go so far as to say there's not a person who will ever listen to the tape which is being made right now as I'm speaking. Though they be listening to that tape years from now, after I'm dead and gone and all of us are dead and gone too,

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if they're listening to this tape, I'll say it to them like I'm saying it to you. You're not a nobody. God loves you. Search the Scriptures and see the promises that are held out to you.

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Take those promises and hide them in your heart that you can refer to them when you need them. Be reminded in Psalm 8 of how God counts you as but little lower than Himself and wants to crown you with glory and honor. Look in Philippians and learn how the upward call of Christ is yours.

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Or again in Philippians, about how the peace of God is ready to be given to your heart and to your mind. Turn to Psalms where the psalmist says, "Thou dost guide me with my counsel, and afterwards thou wilt receive me into glory." Listen to Paul as he trumpets, "Nothing can separate you from the love of God."

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I put these verses on this card. I hope you'll get them and take them home and hide them in your hearts and review them to remind yourself you're never a nobody. God loves you. That's the thing to hold on to in the midst of disparagement.

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That's what Jesus held on to as He went down from the Mount of Olives and started into that city. He moved in the might of the power of the love of God. [silence] And one last thing, one last look.

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Take a wide look at the possibilities. Learn to find the dividends in discouragement. I heard another joke. There was this lady riding on a train and she had a little dog and she liked this dog very much.

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She liked the dog so much that she rented a separate seat for the dog to ride in. And it so happened there was a man right in front of them and he was smoking a big black foul cigar. And the smoke from the cigar was drifting back and the little dog was sitting there all upset. And she taps him on the shoulder and she says, "I wonder if you would mind extinguishing your cigar."

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And he said, "Why?" And she said, "Because it's making my little dog uncomfortable." And he said, "If you think I'm going to put out my cigar for your dog, you have another thing coming." And he went right back to his newspaper.

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And they went a little farther and the dog's tongue was hanging out by this time, you know. And she taps the man on the shoulder and she says to him, she says, "I'd like to ask you please to extinguish that cigar." He said, "Madam, I am not going to extinguish the cigar and if you bother me again,

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I'm going to call the conductor." And returned to his newspaper. Well, within a few minutes the dog was flat out on the seat. You know, little tummy was just puffing and puffing and puffing.

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So in a rage, she got up, threw open the window, reached around, grabbed the cigar, pulled it right out of his mouth and threw it right out the window. So he got up, turned right around, picked up the dog and threw it right out the window. And of course, she was heartbroken and distraught and just full of tears and crying and pleading.

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And he paid no attention to her at all. He lighted another cigar and sat down. Three miles later, they got to the station where she was going to get off and she managed to compose herself enough to walk down the aisle and down the steps. And just as she was getting off the train,

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the little dog comes running up alongside the train. And guess what the dog had in its mouth. Now just think about it. Get a guess in your mind, you know. Guess what the dog had in his mouth. You ready?

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He had the brick that that farmer threw over his head. Now you see, you were discouraged with that joke before. But if you'd have waited a little while, you'd have found the dividends in discouragement. And that's what we've got to learn to do.

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I read about a man in Chicago two weeks ago whose wife was chasing him with pots and pans. She chased him out into the backyard. She was coming at him to finish him off with a frying pan.

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It was in the paper. And suddenly, in a desperate escape, he jumped over a seven-foot wall and escaped. Now that's what you call realizing previously unrealized potential. And he got that out of the midst of discouragement.

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Don't be like the Broadway producer who was approached by a man who wanted an audition. And the producer said, "What do you do?" And he said, "I do bird imitations." And the producer said, "Bird imitations are a dime a dozen. Don't bother me."

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And the fellow said, "Okay, I'm sorry," and proceeded to spread his arms and fly out of the window. We look at something, you see, and we don't expect anything, so we don't find anything. And what we have to learn to do is to discover what's there, the dividends in disappointment. We were halfway across Turkey, traveling across Turkey in a Volkswagen.

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The exact nature of the agony of that can't be visualized unless you are my size. And somehow or other, I was driving, and we pulled off the road at one point, and I got the Volkswagen in a ditch and couldn't get it out. And, you know, was stepping on the accelerator and spinning the wheels and spinning the wheels

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and getting more and more frustrated because, you see, there aren't a great number of motels in the middle of Turkey. And if we didn't get to our reservations, we would lose them, and that would mean spending the night in that Volkswagen, and the day was quite enough.

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And I was, you know, really, really upset and gassing this thing and trying to shove it out. And my friend, whose car it was, said to me, "Yes, turn off the motor." So I turned it off, and he said, "Let's get out." And I got out, and I walked around the back of the car, and he said, "Now, wait a minute.

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Look at that lake over there." "I don't have to look at the lake." So I looked at the lake. It was a nice lake. It really was. I hadn't even noticed it was there.

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He said, "It's that blue because of the sky. Look at the sky." Did you ever play that game where you try to see things in the clouds? "I don't have time to look at things in the clouds if we don't get to this." "Look at that cloud up there. What do you think that is?"

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I came up with some pretty grim descriptions. But he didn't see that in it. He just saw beauty. He said, "The grass is nice here, too." Reached down, picked up a blade of it, put it in his mouth.

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He said, "It even tastes good." He picked a piece and gave it to me and said, "Chew on this." So I chewed on the grass. See this car?

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He said, "I'll bet it's soft, too." And with that, he got down, and he sat in the grass. He said, "Sit down." All right. I sat down.

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He leaned back, and I leaned back, and there we are lying on the grass in the middle of Turkey, looking at the clouds, chewing grass. And the car's behind me. After a while, he rolls over, and from where we were rolling over,

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we could look right up under the edge of the car. He says, "It looks a little different from this perspective." He said, "You see what the trouble is? We've got mud under this one wheel, and that's what you're spinning on.

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Think there's any gravel around?" There was a lot of gravel. I started to run across the road. "Don't run. Just go and get the gravel." I got the gravel, and I brought it back and threw it in.

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Now I said, "Get in the car and take it out." He said, "Don't step on it. Don't step on it. Just take it out like we were leaving to the motel tomorrow morning." So I got in the car, completely relaxed by this time,

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and he stepped on the accelerator and rolled right up out of the ditch and onto the road. Now, you know what the dividend to me was in the midst of that discouragement? It was to take the time to discover the dividends that are in all discouragement--

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lakes and clouds and soft grass and friends who calm you down when you need to be calmed down. I know that I've cracked a lot of jokes this morning, and I hope you won't think,

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if you've come here with a lot of discouragement today, that I'm belittling it because I'm not. I would never belittle it. I know what it is to be discouraged. I'm rather discouraged right at the moment myself.

00:32:23.000 - 00:32:42.000

I'm dealing with a pastoral problem which is very discouraging. I have found that when I'm discouraged, humor helps, so I guess you could say that what I've done this morning is to cheer myself up. But there is a way to work out of it.

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A short look at the problem--don't major in minors-- a narrow look at yourself, emphasize the potential in you, a long look at God--remember He loves you--

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and then a wide look at the possibilities, the dividends in discouragement. It works. It's like that little lady next to me in the plane to Iceland.

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"I'm so nervous," she said. "These airplanes just give me fits." The only good thing about this trip is that at least we're flying toward the sun and it will be morning soon.

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Well, remember, we're all flying toward the sun and it will be morning soon and all the shadows will pass away. And in the darkness or in the light,

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Jesus is saying, "I love you. Is that okay?" And we say, "It's okay. It's more than okay. It's the source of all the possibilities which are ours

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to defeat discouragement." Will you pray with me? Our Father, help us to understand that we can't even see the stars until it gets dark. He who falls in love with the stars never then has any reason to fear the darkness.

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You're our superstar. Let the light of your love flood our lives and flood our darkness and make us victorious because this is so. And the Lord bless you and keep you.

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The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give to you and to all those whom you love his peace. Amen. Amen. Amen.

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