Why Discouragement Means Death

CONSECRATE Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  HEAR Numbers 14:36–38 (NIV) So the men Moses had sent to explore the land, who returned and made the whole community grumble against him by spreading a bad report about it—these men who were responsible for spreading the bad report about the land were struck down and died of a plague before the LORD. Of the men who went to explore the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh survived. CONSIDER We come to a very hard teaching today. So the men Moses had sent to explore the land, who returned and made the whole community grumble against him by spreading a bad report about it—these men who were responsible for spreading the bad report about the land were struck down and died of a plague before the LORD. Something in me doesn’t want God to be this way. I mean, couldn’t we just demote them or dock their pay or fire them? Why death? This is the Word of God, however, and I don’t sit in judgment on this Word. I sit under its judgment. So I ask, “What would you teach me here, Lord?” Here is what I am hearing and seeing in this text: our words carry great weight. Words create worlds, and they can also destroy them. Listen to the brother of Jesus on this point: When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. (James 3:3–6) Many of you reading this do not have an adequate grasp on the power of your words. It is the single greatest power you have to steward. The highest stewardship you can exercise with your words is the choice to be an encourager. Don’t confuse this with positive-thinking optimism. And don’t mistake this to mean encouragers don’t say hard things when needed. Whether challenging or inspiring, the task of an encourager is to speak the truth in love so that “we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ” (Eph. 4:15). The most damaging and devastating thing we can do with our words is to discourage others. Look at the destructive fire started by the words of the ten spies (a.k.a. the majority report). It spread through the people like a forest fire, scorching faith and burning hope to the ground. Look at the extraordinary cost of this cancer of discouragement: forty years of wandering, lostness, and more funerals than we can count. Here’s the real tragedy: the God of heaven and earth was not asking these twelve spies for their opinion on his Word and promise. He was not calling for the question. This was never meant to be an up or down vote on the Word of God. We do not sit in judgment on the Word of God. We stand under God’s authority as we humbly seek to understand his will in all things. Encouragement—and consequently discouragement—is a matter of life and death. Encouragement is life. Discouragement is death. I love this opening declaration in the Sower’s Creed: Today, I stake everything on the promise of the Word of God.  PRAY Father, we declare it: Today, we stake everything on the promise of the Word of God. Thank you that your Word is your promise, and your promise is everything. Train our words after your words. Teach us to say what you say and to do what you do and to think like you think. Awaken us to the power of our words to encourage. Come, Holy Spirit, and train us to always speak the truth in love so that others might flourish. We pray in Jesus’s name, amen.