And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. - 1Samuel 30: 6 (KJV)
We hear certain words thrown around Christian circles so often that we lose sight of what they should truly mean to a believer in Jesus Christ. Encouragement is one such word.
"That was such an encouraging word."
"He is always an encouraging preacher."
"I just need to feel encouraged."
Unfortunately in modern Christendom, the word encouragement has become code for ear-tickling. We want to hear how great we are instead of God. How blessed God wants to make us. How we can keep on sinning and think that heaven is just begging us to come in. When we hear the true Gospel preached we feel as if we are not being encouraged. The truth is our flesh is not being encouraged. To the world, encouragement is needed to feel better about oneself. In the Kingdom of God however, it should be so we can feel better about the God we serve. We need to wake up beloved. Joel Osteen is not an "encourager" - he is a false teacher. Joyce Meyers is not an "encourager" - she is a false teacher. The bless me now, name it and claim it, blab it and grab it, sow your seed of faith, seven steps to a better you, purpose driven, seeker friendly parade of false teachers are not in the encouragement business. They are in the leading people to hell business. It is time to stop sugar coating what is going on. If we want to see the true nature of Godly encouragement, let us turn to Scripture.
And it came to pass, when David and his men were come to Ziklag on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the south, and Ziklag, and smitten Ziklag, and burned it with fire; And had taken the women captives, that were therein: they slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away, and went on their way. So David and his men came to the city, and, behold, it was burned with fire; and their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, were taken captives. Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept, until they had no more power to weep. And David's two wives were taken captives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite. - 1Samuel 30: 1-5 (KJV)
Now THIS was a bad day beloved. We are not talking about petty ministry disagreements. We are not talking about not getting our deepest desires met. We are talking about returning home to find everything burned to the ground. Your wife - gone. Your children - gone. Taken captive by your greatest enemy. This was not your best life now. This was Ziklag. So we come to the key verses and we see that the situation is even more dire than we had realized. The people who had followed you loyally - now speak of stoning you to death! If there was ever a time David could have used an Osteen sermon - this was it! This is your day of supernatural favor!
Not quite. What David needed was to remember who he served. What David needed to remember is who God was. David, as the key verses teach us, encouraged himself in the Lord his God. There are two important lessons here for us to learn. The first one is that we do not need to wait for someone else to make us feel better. Churchianity has become a consumer mindset. We view ourselves as customers instead of servants. As such we would prefer to hear the soft side of the Gospel and anything that hits too close to home we consider unencouraging. The reality is the harder words are often the most encouraging. We need to be encouraged to stop sinning before the devil has a field day in our lives. We need to be encouraged work out our salvation with fear and trembling before a holy God. It is OK to question God. It is OK to bemoan our situations in our darkest hours. Just as long as we come back to who He is. As long as we come back to encouraging ourselves in the Lord. David knew this:
O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever?
How long will you look the other way?
How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul,
with sorrow in my heart every day?
How long will my enemy have the upper hand?
Turn and answer me, O Lord my God!
Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die.
Don't let my enemies gloat, saying, "We have defeated him!"
Don't let them rejoice at my downfall.
But I trust in your unfailing love.
I will rejoice because you have rescued me.
I will sing to the Lord
because he is good to me. - Psalm 13: 1-6 (NLT)
David even yells at God in this Psalm! He can take it! He is a big God. After David gets everything off of his chest he comes back to encouraging himself in God. He remembers His unfailing love. He remembers how God has rescued him before. He remembers how good God has been to him. It seems too often we are really good about saying the first half of this Psalm. We are good at the complaining and yelling at God. Then when we are at our lowest we turn to candy-shelled preachers telling us how great we are. How much blessing God wants to give us. How we just need to "speak positively" over the Ziklag we find ourselves in. There is no power in that beloved! Ziklag is real! The missing family members are real! The burning houses are real! The stones in the hands of those who used to love you are real! You can speak as positively as you like and it will not change Ziklag into a victory - only God can do that! We do not need to turn on TBN to be encouraged. We do not need to go to the church building to be encouraged. We do not need to call on friends or even family. We just need to turn to God and remember who He is.
And that leads to the second lesson; which is that our encouragement must be in the Lord and not in ourselves. There was very little David could have done at this point in his own power. He could have pursued but he had no idea how or if he would be successful. He did however know who knew...
And David inquired at the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? shall I overtake them? And he answered him, Pursue: for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all. - 1Samuelk 30: 8 (KJV)
We do not have the answers beloved but we serve the one who does! We serve the one who laid the foundations of the universe with a single spoken sentence. We do not need seven steps to a better you but only one step back towards the God who we serve. When we feel unsure of our future we need to encourage ourselves in what God has promised. Joseph was given a dream by God once but it would be 14 years before it came to pass. During that time he was sold into slavery by his brothers, falsely accused of rape because he stood his ground morally, and languished in prison for over a decade. There is no question that Joseph needed encouragement routinely - just to survive. He did not need to feel better about himself. He did not need to speak more positively about his situation. He needed to remember the promises God had made and encourage himself accordingly. We either believe or we do not. It is easy to believe God on the mountaintop but in Ziklag; that is where we need to be encouraged in the Lord. Beware snake oil salesmen who come to you in thousand dollar suits and million dollar smiles selling you on human-centered encouragement.
I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. - Romans 16: 17-18 (NIV)
The times are perilous and we can no longer afford to be so naive. Smooth talk and flattery serve only the devil. They serve to make us feel better about our fallen state instead of feeling better about the God who saved us from it.
Ziklag is an inevitability in our lives beloved. Sometimes we will come home to find our lives burning to the ground around us. Those we love gone. Those we trusted holding stones in their hands and pointing their fingers at us. This is not a time to feel better about ourselves but rather better about our God. This is not a time to be encouraged in our human condition but rather in the Godly position we hold in Christ. We do not need a five point humanistic message on the power of our words. We need the Holy Scriptures of God to remind us who He is and what He has promised us. We need to ask Him if we should pursue or hold fast. Our problems may seem insurmountable. Our pain may seem unbearable. Our encouragement though, should always be Godly.
Rev. Anthony.
