Y'all got to look over old brother John Pruitt. He's getting old. And I tell you, he thinks, he tells everybody he's younger than I am, but I don't know. Looking at him, I don't think so. But anyway, it's good to be here. Yes, there you go. I appreciate this building. I tell you, it's nice. It really is. I had an old preacher one time. They didn't have a baptistry. It's true now. And they finally got one. And somebody asked him, they said, what did you do before y'all had a baptistry? He said, we dry cleaned them. So I don't know. Y'all didn't have to dry clean them, did you? All right. All right. It's good to be here. It's good to see these folks and meet folks at least once a year. We get to meet some of the folks here in Florida. It's always good. But it's always good to get back to Georgia. And it's better to get back to Kentucky. But anyway, that's the way it is. All right, if you have your Bibles, turn to the book of Hebrews if you would. The book of Hebrews. And I want to read a couple of verses here. My comments that I'll be making from these verses won't be my message, so I want you to understand that. He says in Hebrews 10 and verse 24, Let us consider one another to provoke and to love and to good works." And that's not all of this. He said, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as a matter of some is, but exhorting one another and so much more as you see the day approaching. You know, I'm going to say this at this time that You know, this is forsaking yourselves from being in the Lord's house when you should be there. It's a sin. It really is. This is one presumptuous sin. You know, people plan to miss church. They do. They'll start in January planning to miss church. But as far as I know, this is only sin that's mentioned in the Bible that follows it up with a penalty. And if you presumptuously sin, then you're going to have to be a certain one looking for indignation. God's going to visit you, no doubt about that. But my message today is not on that. I just gave you that for you. But my message today is on what I have learned about discouragement. Now, if I was to ask you if there's anybody in here who's never been discouraged, I know we don't have any liars raise their hand and say they hadn't. But we, you know, discouragement is a terrible thing. It really is. If you have never been discouraged, then you've been asleep for the last few, at least last few months. Because I tell you, some of the things I'm hearing discourages me. Some of the things I'm hearing, not just from our government, but some of the things I'm hearing from our churches. You know, it's discouraging. It really is. It's something that discourages you because you never know where they're going to land, where everything is going to land now. But if you haven't been lifted up these last couple of days, then you've been asleep too. So it's great lifting to hear my brethren preach and to hear them proclaim the Word of God and to give us a great hope and great promises that God gives us, it's a wonderful thing. You know, you just, you can't get enough of the promises that God gives to us. But it takes a lot of uplifting. You know, sometimes to lift us up and get us out of that discouragement. I want to say this. Discouragement is a spiritual thing. Depression is a physical thing. Discouragement is not depression. Some people get the idea that if somebody gets discouraged or something, they're getting depressed. That's not necessarily so. Discouragement is a spiritual thing. But discouragement is a terrible thing too. Find yourself in. You know, the Apostle Paul says it in another way. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians if you would. We won't be using a lot of scripture today because I don't use a lot of scripture when I preach. I usually preach from one text and that's it. But Paul says it in another way in the book of Let me get over here in the book of 2 Corinthians. Paul speaks of this. Paul says, we are troubled in 2 Corinthians 3 and verse 8, or 4 and verse 8. He says, we are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair. We're persecuted but not forsaken. We're cast down but not destroyed. Always bearing about in the body of the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. Wonderful thing. For we which live are always always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you. We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believe, and therefore have I spoken, we also believe, and therefore we speak. You know, Paul says we get down, but he says we're not out. You know, we lose a battle or two. You know, I've always told our people that, you know, don't ever play the victim. You know, we're victors. Yeah. You know, to victimize yourself is to bring yourself down. to a point to where sometimes it's hard to get back out of it. So don't ever play the victim. If somebody is critical, then just say, well, we won. We won. Because most people don't criticize unless you're a winner. And so don't ever be discouraged to the point to where that you feel like you're a victim because we're not. People are going to say all kinds of things about you. There's no doubt about that. I've been pastoring 52 years and I've had a lot said about me over the years, a lot said. But you can get back up. You can get over it. You can go. You can make it. But you've got to have something for propulsion, something behind you that's pushing you. And that's what the Lord said he's going to do for his children. You always keep that in mind. You always keep that in mind. You're going to always go forward. You don't worry about what's behind you, what's happened in the past. Paul says we don't look back. You know, we always look forward. We always look to the one who died for us and gave his life for us. And just to think what he went through. Just to think, you know, some people say, well, it's enough to die on Calvary's tree. But I want to tell you one thing. He went through a lot before he ever died. He sure did. I had somebody tell me one time, I mentioned, and they said, well, he was Jesus. He knew what he was doing. He still went through a lot. He sure did. I mean, everywhere he went, can you imagine? There was one time there where he, I don't know, where he made himself invisible or where he got lost in the crowd. But one time there, when they came to get him, they couldn't find him. Why? Because it wasn't his time to go. He had other things that he had to do. And so when we think about that, me as a pastor, I realize I've got other things I've got to get done. Oh, I can get discouraged, but it seems like that God will send something along that will lift you up. Just when you think you're down, God will send something to lift you up. And you know, we just, we had two young girls at our church we've been praying for for a long time. They were saved three weeks ago. And I'll tell you, that'll lift you up. I'll tell you, if you've never seen that, and their daddy-mama was here yesterday, and I'll tell you, their daddy-mama, I don't know if they ever went to a Bible conference or not, but boy, after that, they came to one. It'll lift you up. I tell you, and that's what God does to us. God has said, I've always said this. I don't want anybody to get afraid today. I've always said this. God, when I preach my last message, I want to die right there. I want to die right here. If this is my last message. Then I'll let Brother Troy carry me out. You think you have to get some help? Well, my goodness. I said that at church, and some of them young men come to me and they said, well, don't you worry. We're not going to carry you out. But I told the mayor of Idalia, and another fellow I drank coffee with, I drank coffee with the mayor every morning. And I told the mayor, I said, I did my funeral arrangements. He said, you did? I said, I've got two pallbearers. I said, you and another fellow. And the mayor said, I know a lot of people that's got forklifts. And things like that. He said, I'll never carry a casket with you in it. But anyway, we've got a lot to look forward to. We sure do. Discouragement is a terrible thing. But it happens. It happens. But I do believe Encouraging one another personally is the best medicine that can be prescribed and given to to make a happy person, a happy spiritual life. Well, it's wonderful to have others that, you know, are of like faith and order. You know, I don't know what's wrong with people today, but I want to tell you, I had a man call me here a while back from Kentucky, and he said, it's sad when weak Baptists start complaining about what they're seeing among strong Baptists today. And I've seen these before. I've been doing this a long time. I remember the time when somebody had attacked on the church, and I don't know if he's gone on now, but Brother Austin Fields, I don't know how many of you remember him, but he started this thing on priesthood of the church and started teaching these things. I've seen these things happen before, but I didn't think I'd have to go through something like this again before I left here. But I've seen those things. I've been through those things. I've watched over those things. And God brings his people through them. They stand. You might be few in number at times, but God brings them through them. And the best thing to do is uplift one another. It's to personally uplift one another. That's the best thing to do. We must always consider that each of us are just humans of like passions and infirmities. All of us are alike. It's just like last year. I shouldn't have said anything, but I did. I kind of complained because Brother Troy put me first last year. But what did he do? He put me last this year. I didn't know I made Brother Troy mad. And then John Pruitt comes in, and John Pruitt said, I guess you told him to put me first this year. I didn't, Brother John, but I'm glad he did. But anyway, we have the same infirmities. We get angry. We get sad. We get discouraged. Sometimes all of us have the same problems. We have to drag these dead bodies around until the Lord sees fit to take them away from here. You know, you've got to drag them around every day. And I tell you, some of us have got more body to drag around than others. But I tell you, it's something that we have today. But we have the same passions and infirmities. has a different temperament, and we should make allowance when we consider encouraging one another personally. Realize those things. Realize that sometimes we have to be lifted up. You know, don't be afraid to go to your pastor and say, pastor, I'm praying for you. I know you're a little down, but I'm praying for you. And you'd be surprised what God will do. You'd be surprised what he will do in this. All of us have feelings. None of us are so callous that our feelings don't get hurt. I would think after preaching as long as I've been preaching, I wouldn't be nervous. But I'm nervous right now. I don't know. Do you ever get over it? I used to ride motorcycles. And somebody said, if you think you got one conquered, you're about ready to have a bad wreck. And so you've got the same way with the ministry. You think you've got it conquered, God's about to bring you down and knock your tail. He's going to bring you down. I've seen young preachers like I was, thought I had it all. I thought I had everything. I thought I had everything that a young preacher needs to be a great preacher. And it wasn't... I don't know if I told you folks this or not, The second church I pastored, I went into the church and every woman in had a head covering on. I'd preach against head coverings. That wasn't that stupid. It was. And I did it all because when I went there to preach a trial message, two of the ladies came to me and they said, how come your wife doesn't have a head covering on? I said, I'll teach them a lesson. So I preached against head coverings and I thought these two ladies said, we need to talk to you after service over with. They took me aside and they taught me about head coverings. They did. They took me aside and I went back to, I was going to seminary then and I went back and Dr. Roscoe Braun, I was down that morning and Dr. Roscoe Braun said, what's wrong with you? I said, Dr. Roscoe Brown, I did a stupid thing. He said, what's that? I said, I went and preached to a church against head coverings whenever a woman had head coverings on. He started dying laughing. He said, that was stupid. But I tell you, you know, we do stupid things. And sometimes you have to look over us, just like Brother John up here. I looked over him every bit of it. I said, he's old. He don't know what he's doing. He don't even know what he's saying. Yeah, I love him though. I love him to death. Just look at him. You can't help him love me. We get hurt. I'm like some of you. And I've had some mighty wicked things said to me over the years. Mighty terrible things said to me over the years. But I tell you, the Lord has a way of lifting you up. Now the problem with discouragement is what happens to you when you get discouraged, your mind gets divided. That's why discouragement is terrible for you. You get to thinking, you know, your mind starts getting divided. And saved people are people of a sound mind. And it's already been said here in this meeting when Apostle Paul says, but we, referring to the saved, we have the mind of Christ. Boy, sometimes I don't know. Sometimes I don't know. Sometimes we get to a point where I don't know if I've got the mind of Christ or not. But he says we do. We have the mind of Christ. We know that Christ had a sound mind. And we have a mind just like Him. According to the Word of God, we should do nothing to distort or divide the mind of the saved. You know, one of the worst things ever was is, I remember some man called me up several years ago. He said, you know what's wrong with you Landmark Baptists? And I said, what's that? He said, you all have a tendency to de-save people. And I said, what do you mean by that? He said, y'all have a tendency to take saved people and try to take it out of them. I said, we don't do that. He said, yes, you do. He said, when you get up and preach that not everybody you think you know is saved is not saved, he said, you're de-saving some people. I still believe that. I don't believe everybody is saved that says they're saved. It's just like Brother Colley preached there yesterday, you know, a person sitting right beside you. Might be, might just be like Judas Iscariot. We don't know. We don't know what's in the mind of people. You know what's there. It amazes me that preachers can preach a funeral and look right down at that person in that casket and say, I know they were saved. You don't know any such thing. You don't know any such thing. I mean, you sit there and you say these things. And I had one time someone told me, I talked about witnessing. They said, well, I don't have anybody to witness to. I said, why is that? They said, everybody I work with is saved. And we get accused sometimes of de-saving people. You know, when we preach that not everybody is safe, but even Paul said that. Paul said not all are Jews who say they're Jews. And so it happens. But James says a double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways. And so we don't want to double-mind. I don't know what time I started, but I guess that's good. But anyway, James says a double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways. Also, he goes on to say in James 3.16, for where envy and strife is, there is confusion in every evil work. So, you know, you want to confuse people, you want to divide their minds and double their minds, just say something stupid. And you will. Because they don't know, you know, that's like the old boy that somebody was coming to get him and he just acted like he was completely out of his mind, the guy left him alone. And I guess sometimes people think we're just completely out of our mind. But we're not. You know, it causes confusion. You don't know how many times I have had to clean up after one who has made a negative statement about another. You know, many times you've got to do that as a pastor. You've got to go behind and clean up after people when some people don't know what to say or how to say or whatever. It's an amazing thing. Another great problem with discouragement is you want to lay the blame on others. You know, discouragement will cause a person to start laying the blame on somebody else. They did it. They did it. I didn't do it. They did it. And that's where it comes from. The Word of God has power to cause men and women to see their errant ways. And I believe the Word of God will cause men and women to change their ways. You know, people can change their ways. They don't have to go around like that all the time and be a divider rather than Jesus. Jesus said, I didn't come to bring peace. But he said, I came to bring a sword to divide. But that's a big difference. That's dividing the world out there. But sometimes we find ourselves dividing our own kind. You know, you can't do that. You just shouldn't do it. I have learned that negative talking, and this is something everybody needs to work on, that negative talking and negative acting causes people to do the same thing that the negative talker's doing, that is, to begin to blame others for their problems. They begin to blame others for their problems. People should be encouraged to follow the Word of God and the teachings of the Lord's Church. That should encourage us. We have the best encouragement there ever was. It's just to follow the Lord and the things that the Lord teaches in our church. I venture to say That Sovereign Grace, Landmark Missionary Baptist Church probably has the best answer for any problems that people have. Armenian doesn't have it. Armenian doesn't have it. You know, an Armenian, he just says, well, everything's alright? You walked church out, didn't you? Yeah. You were baptized in? Well, you're alright. You know, we can You know, we have the best method of lifting up people ever was. You know, one of the greatest humbling truths that I ever learned was the sovereign grace. That's one of the humbling truths I ever learned was sovereign grace. You know, I used to be a little Armenian, or a big Armenian. No, I was a little Armenian. I wasn't as big as I am now. But I used to be a little Armenian in my beliefs and my teachings. But I want to tell you, when Sovereign Grace came along, I learned about it. I tell you, it's great. The more I learned about it, the more uplifting it was to think that before the world began, God always knew me. Now, think about this. Now, God is eternal. He is infinite. And He has always had me on His mind. Yeah. You know, you can't divide. Some people talk about time and eternity. They don't go together. There's no such thing as time and eternity. Because eternity has no time. When did God stop one day and say, well, I'm going to choose Troy Shepard. He's always had that. Think about that for a moment. I mean, you think about something that lifts you up. He has always had me on his mind. Always. You say, well, back 10 million years ago. No, let's go back further than that. Back 100 million years ago. Well, no, let's go back further than that. Trillion years ago. Let's go back further than that. God has always had us on His mind. What great truth, what better truth there is to lift people up than to preach that? Armenianism doesn't lift people up. It just gets people down the aisle. It gets them in the baptismal waters. You know, we think about the ninety and nine. Armenian wants all one hundred of them at one time. He doesn't want to wait on that one. It's a great blessing. Discouragement is defeated when we think about that. But let me ask you this. What do you do with a person that you go to them and say something to them and they say, I haven't done anything? What do you do with them? What do you do with somebody like that? You say, well, as a pastor, I'm responsible to build them back up. I haven't done anything. You know, that's where we are today. We're in this denial generation today. Deny everything. You know, like old Nancy Pelosi, I won't give you a dollar. You know, just deny everything. Just deny everything. Just lie about it. Man, that's the way to get out of it today. Well, you can't do that. You can't do that when you get in the Word of God. It's just truth. There's only truth in the Word of God. There's no lies there. God, who cannot lie, He can't tell a lie. A man called me one time. He said, you're a liar. I said, you are too. He said, why you say that? I said, because God says all men are liars. But God's all truth. The Bible's all truth. Not only do those who are discouraged blame everybody, but their anger comes to the forefront. You want to get a discouraged person against you, try to go talk to them. They will. They'll get against you in a hurry. They sure will. Their anger comes to the forefront. Yes, the Word of God still offends people. The truth offends people. However, the Word of God with the leadership of the Holy Spirit will remove offenses. It will remove them and if we just learn that, you know, it's a wonderful thing When a person gets down and they want somebody to talk to them, that's a wonderful thing. But when a person gets down and they don't want anybody to talk to them, you've got a problem on your hands. You really do. You get a chance of offending them. Now discouraged anger causes separation from the people you love. I don't understand it. I don't understand why the people, when they do something they shouldn't do, they shun their brothers and sisters, they shun the church. I mean, I tell you, you don't run away from the Lord, you run toward the Lord. You run to God when you get in trouble. Why can't we learn that? Why can't we learn that staying out of church is not going to help you any? I tell our people if marital problems, you know, I said the answer is not at the beach. You know, they say we're going to go to the beach and see if we can settle our problems. There's nothing at the beach that's going to settle your problems. Or we're going to go to the mountains. We feel like we get out in the mountains. I tell you, I lived in the mountains. They didn't help my problems. I'm still a little crazy. But what do you want to do? Why don't you just come to the Lord's house? And why don't you just make your trouble known so people can help you? so people can take the word of God and show you where you need to turn around. Why not do that? Also, discouragement causes one to live a life of complaining. A discouraged person is a complaining person. They complain so much. Complaining is contagious. It's contagious. You know, one person complains, another starts complaining. You know, there's some people you just ask, you'll say, well how do you feel today? Oh, that's the wrong thing to do. Man, they'll tell you their whole medical history. Sure will. Complaining is contagious. If one complains, they will lead others to complain. Complaining discourages others and causes them to complain about the truth, the church, the pastor, individuals of the church, and God forbid, God Himself. They'll complain about everything. When the best thing to do is just try to get help, and the help is in the Word of God. There's people here, we pastors, we're all just human. And most of us are pretty dumb, but we do know how to use the Word of God. We know how to talk to you about the Word of God. We sure do. We know how to do that. I don't know, I think my time is just about up. But anyway, Paul says in Ephesians 4, 31 and 32, that all bitterness, wrath, anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you with all malice, and be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." You know, I had a saying many years ago that if somebody goes against you, kill them with kindness. You know my wife says that now? I didn't think she'd ever say that. Yeah, my wife said, I was talking to somebody, said something to her, and she said, I'm just going to kill them with kindness. I said, that's good. She went and bought her something, took it to her, gave it to her, and boom, it was over. Just kill them with kindness. So if you think I'm overly kind to you, then you probably got a problem. That's right. I was supposed to call Sam Wilson, wasn't I? And tell him, you're here. Sam called me and he said, if you see my members, you send them home. Yeah. I approach you, you know, you better be careful. Discouragement will cause someone to make a bad decision. You'll make decisions when you're discouraged. It will be a bad decision. I guarantee you it will be. They make bad decisions about worshipping the Lord, how to conduct their life, and most of all, they make bad decisions that affect the rest of their life. Sometimes when you get discouraged, you can make a decision that's going to affect the rest of your life. It sure is. I have met many people who will not go back to church because of something was said to them that probably needed to be said. You got to be careful about those things. I know a man right now, Brother Sam and Sister Kara would know him too if I mentioned his name, but I know a man right now that he won't come back to church because somebody said something bad to him at our church. I talked to him all the time. I drank coffee with him some. And I always tell him, I say, brother, when are you going to come back to church? He won't. He holds it against our church because one person in our church said something bad to him. And that's why you got to be careful. Y'all know who I'm talking about, don't you? I think you. But Sam said, yeah, he knows. Kara can't say anything, so she'll have to just be quiet. But anyway, he knows. In conclusion, you know, a fellow said one time, when a preacher says conclusion, that doesn't mean nothing. But in conclusion, our text for this message admonishes us to provoke to love. We are to stir up brotherly love in one another, which will wax cold at times. The text also teaches us to provoke to good works. When we do this, we're teaching God's children to glorify God, to adorn the gospel, stop the gainsaying, gossiping, and griping, and have gratitude toward God for His love and mercy. You can spend the rest of your life thanking God for what He's done for you. And you won't thank Him enough. You won't thank Him enough. All right, I'm going to let you have it, brother. Thank you.