Encouragement that Calms Fears | Tony Evans Sermons

some of us are being destroyed by Satan

you need somebody who can whisper about

the power of God in your life and you

need to know from somebody who can see

outside of you that greater is he that

is in you you need to be lifted out of

your discouragement through honesty with

God in order to get the rest you need or

the help you need and to have somebody

in your life who loves you enough and

God will love to hook the two together

[Music]

most of us know at least discouragement

discouragement typically is related to a

loss of something you discourage because

you lost your job you discouraged

because you lost your health you

discourage because the bills have

climbed up and you’ve lost your

financial freedom

but when discouragement continues and

elongates itself discouragement devolves

into depression

depression is

discouragement on steroids it’s

discouragement that now has produced an

ongoing level of Gloom and ongoing level

of emotional pain and when

discouragement becomes depression

depression unresolved becomes despair

and when depression becomes despair that

ongoing discouragement that has led to

depression which now results in despair

produces a sense of hopelessness you see

no way out you see that there’s going to

be no exit sign there’s no way to get

around this thing there’s no way to beat

this thing it will not go away and then

when discouragement results in

depression that leads into despair then

you wind up considering the possibility

of death

because maybe that’s my only way out

because the hopelessness has gone on so

long so that death as a result of

Despair due to continuing uh depression

resulting from ongoing discouragement

has placed me in a place where I see

nothing else to live for

all of us have been in level number one

discouragement many of us have been in

level number two depression that’s our

situation today

with Elijah

now last time we saw Elijah

he’s rolling nice

last time we saw Elijah it closes

chapter 18 by saying the hand of the

Lord was on it

I mean he’s run 15 miles non-stop at

lightning speed because the hand of the

Lord was on him he’s then sucked down

rain from Heaven because the Lord was on

him he’s destroyed 400 prophets because

the hand of the Lord was on him here is

a prophet on steroids he’s got it going

on and he is doing large but in less

than 24 hours

his world changes his life collapses and

then in less than a day

everything is turned around and he is

gone from the hilltop the mountain peak

of Victory to the valley of despair

when we come to chapter 19

we find out what led to this

emergency shift in his emotions

Ahab had a controlling wife

he had a woman who was telling them what

to do