The Necessity for Encouragement
Without strong encouragement, the fainthearted will quickly succumb to the pressures of the world, the stubborn will become more set in their ways, and the faithless will fall away from the living God. On the other hand, a strong encouragement from a brother or sister in Christ can act like a balm that softens our hardened hearts, a shield that protects our discouraged hearts from sin’s deceitfulness.
Experiencing discouragement is a normal part of being human. We are discouraged by the actions of others, and we are discouraged by our own actions. Maybe you are walking with someone—a friend, counselee, or loved one—who is discouraged. Maybe as you are reading this, you feel discouraged right now. I think it’s fair to say that we could all use more encouragement.
The Downward Spiral of Discouragement
All of us get discouraged at some point—someone disappoints us, we read another devastating headline, we get a painful phone call, or we fall into the trap of habitual sin once more—life on this earth does not go the way we expect. When these things happen, it is all too easy to throw up our hands and say, “I can’t take it anymore!” “What’s the point?” “Why even bother?” If we are not careful, discouragement can callous our hearts towards God.
Listen to the words of the author of Hebrews:
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion” (Heb. 3:12-15).
The people of Israel were discouraged. All they knew was slavery in Egypt—a life of hard living and no rest. With a mighty display of His power and love, God stepped in and released them from bondage. But freedom didn’t look the way they expected. Out in the desert, the Israelites soon became discouraged by their circumstances. They wanted a home, they wanted rest, and they were thirsty and hungry. God provided and God promised, but they quickly forgot His goodness (Ex. 16; Num. 11). Before long, their discouragement led to bitterness and ultimately to rebellion. Their punishment would be 40 years of wandering in the desert.
The Warning
The writer of Hebrews offers us a warning. Sin is deceitful. When circumstances or our own failures discourage us, we are tempted to turn inward, looking for ways to self-preserve or point fingers. We can struggle to see past the immediate situation and quickly forget the ways God has been faithful. We might hear the faint voice of God but instead, choose to “harden our hearts” against Him.
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Woeful Woke Wonders Weakening the West
In the 2005 interview, Zimmer said, “It was just somebody really celebrating. But it wasn’t a romantic event. It was just an event of ‘thank God the war is over’ kind of thing. It wasn’t that much of a kiss, it was more of a jubilant act that he didn’t have to go back, she said. And the reason he grabbed someone dressed like a nurse was that he just felt very grateful to nurses who took care of the wounded.” Three months earlier, Mendonsa had been at the helm of the USS The Sullivans during the Battle of Okinawa and dragged survivors and the dead from the water. Nurses helped save many lives.
The end of Western civilisation as we know it could come down to this: either the masses will get so utterly sick and tired of all the crapola being forced down their throats by the loony left, or the Woke brigade will triumph and we will all be toast. Things really are moving in that direction.
And the way things are now going, pretty soon even celebrating things like the end of WWII and the defeat of Hitler and the Nazis will be declared to be illegal. Consider a quite recent episode of this woke insanity which has caused a massive uproar on the social media – and rightly so.
One of the most iconic photos of all of WWII was about to be banned by the Veterans Affairs Department in the hyper-left Biden administration. But in this case people power meant the government had to do a very quick backdown. But it was not the first time these clowns tried pulling off stuff like this, nor will it be the last.
The picture itself is one of exuberant celebration. On August 14, 1945, the Japanese officially surrendered, bringing this wretched global conflict to a close. One young sailor, George Mendonsa, gave an impromptu celebratory act by giving a young Jewish dental assistant who was passing by a quick hug and a kiss. The rest is history.
However, in our current climate of political correctness, this is now seen as a great evil – one that must forever be purged from the history books. But when ordinary Americans got wind of what was about to happen, they instantly rose to their feet and spoke out. As one media account puts it:
The Veterans Affairs secretary has reversed a department memo that aimed to ban VA displays of the iconic “V-J Day in Times Square” photograph of a Navy sailor kissing a strange woman on the streets of New York at the end of World War II. Secretary Denis McDonough acted hours after a copy of a memo from a VA assistant undersecretary requesting the photo’s removal from all VA health facilities was shared on social media. The memo had said the photo “depicts a non-consensual act” and is inconsistent with the department’s sexual harassment policy.
Claims of her being basically sexually assaulted have been around for some time. The Me-Too movement has played this up, among others. The woman in the photo, whose married name was Greta Zimmer Friedman, did say that the kiss took her by surprise, but she did not regard it as an attack on her person.
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A Response to: “Music at the GA and the PCA”
What all those times of worship at our General Assemblies have had in common every year was enthusiastic congregational singing, from metrical psalms to classical hymns to contemporary songs. All of that made the recent article, that was so critical of the singing at the Assembly, to be so very disappointing.
One of the great privileges we enjoy in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) is gathering each year with like-minded commissioners and guests at our annual General Assembly. The past two (Birmingham ‘22 and Memphis ‘23) were especially important in the issues we considered, and especially wonderful in the corporate worship in which we engaged. In addition to the major worship services, we were led in congregational singing at the beginning of each business session during the day. This is the reason we exist … to worship our glorious God, to sing His praise in the midst of the Assembly.
As has become customary, the three evening worship services at our General Assemblies were each led by a different set of local teaching and ruling elders and musicians from churches in the host presbytery. Each included great preaching, solid liturgical structure, and a variety of musical styles. One evening was with choir, orchestra, and organ. A second was with piano and a small acoustical instrumental ensemble. A third was by a praise band that included guitars, percussion, and vocalists. Each of these involved many hours of planning and rehearsal by talented, well-trained Christian musicians who were honored to offer their skills as a sacrifice of praise to enhance the worship of God’s people.
Speaking of skill, is a trained musician somehow excluded from using his/her talents in worship? Some would suggest so. Is musical creativity ruled out because it involves a level of richness beyond that of the amateur? Must hymns always be sung in the four-part harmony printed in the hymnal? Remember how God utilized the most skilled artisans in the decorations in the tabernacle. Look at how much literary excellence came from the skillful musicians/poets who wrote the Psalms. And remember how Calvin sought the finest poets and composers in France to put together the Geneva Psalter. What are we to make of the inspired command in Psalm 33:3, “Sing to Him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.” We who are musicians aren’t “showing off” our talents, as we are sometimes accused of doing; we are doing what God has equipped and commanded us to do, and to do what we pray is glorifying to God and beneficial to His people.
What all those times of worship at our General Assemblies have had in common every year was enthusiastic congregational singing, from metrical psalms to classical hymns to contemporary songs. All of that made the recent article, that was so critical of the singing at the Assembly, to be so very disappointing. It did not really come as a surprise, since the author has been posting negative comments of this sort for a number of years. Here is a link to that article, which also appeared in The Aquila Report. One of its key complaints was the lack of, or supplanting of, congregational hymnody. That is quite a surprising charge, since by my count, between the evening services and the daytime singing we sang a total of 25 songs in our two and a quarter days of convened gatherings in Memphis! Most of these were classical hymns from the “Trinity Hymnal” (like Our God, Our Help in Ages Past, and Holy, Holy, Holy). Some were more contemporary songs that are very well known across the denomination (like In Christ Alone and We Will Feast in the House of Zion). Some (just a few) were newer compositions that we learned quickly and easily.
I have known the author of the article for many years, and appreciate the great ministry God has granted him, both in his local congregation and for the denomination. He was the compiler of the 1994 paperback “Trinity Psalter.” While I have not agreed with all his perspectives about worship, his books and articles on the subject have been significant. His two recent publications on the attributes of God are splendid. And I’m so glad to join him in urging the singing of Psalms regularly in our worship services. It’s tragic that they have been so neglected, especially in Reformed churches. Our people are missing so much by their lack of familiarity with this biblical collection of songs for worship. At our most recent General Assembly, at the beginning of one morning business session, I spoke briefly about this before leading the commissioners in the a cappella singing of Psalm 100.
While it was not explicitly stated, it seemed that the author has a very negative view of the presence of choirs (or soloists?) in worship. Sadly, there have been occasions in some of our churches where the choir usurps the congregation’s singing, but these are rare. The choir’s role is to lead, support, and encourage congregational singing. In most churches, the choir rehearses the hymns at their practice, not just the anthem. And so on Sunday morning, the congregation typically sings much better when the choir is carrying out those roles. In many instances (as at our most recent Assembly), the choir director selects anthems based on familiar hymns. A creative accompaniment (varied harmonization, contrasting instrumental registration, modulations to a different key, etc.) enhances the beauty of the hymn and makes a more powerful impression on the mind and heart. Is it legitimate for a choir or soloist to sing in addition to (not in place of) the congregation? No more or less so than for a pastor or elder to pray in addition to (not in place of) the congregation.
One of the criticisms made by the author of the recent article was that the sound of the choir and instrumentalists drowned out the human voices in the congregation. That’s a very subjective call, and it may depend on where one was seated in the room. In such a large space as the Assembly Hall, with extremely challenging acoustics and with congregants so spread out, there has to be enough volume to keep everyone on pitch and in time with the rhythmic movement of the music. Otherwise, it becomes chaos! I know that in the church served by the author of this recent critical article, there is a very large pipe organ that produces a substantial volume in morning worship, volume that I’m sure the organist uses in appropriate measure. And at the Assembly, the room was so large that it was absolutely necessary to amplify the sound of musicians and speakers. If one was sitting close to the speakers through which the sound was coming, it could well have seemed excessively loud, but we trust the expert sound technicians monitoring the volume and quality of the music at the sound booth to adjust it appropriately for everyone present.
Speaking of the sound volume of our music in worship, what do we make of the inspired words of Psalm 150 concerning both the instruments we use and the volume at which our music is presented? That Psalm lists a large array of instruments that are used in worship: trumpets, lutes, harps, tambourines, strings, pipes, sounding cymbals, even loud clashing cymbals! And when we come to passages like Revelation 1:10, 14:2 and 19:6, we read of John’s description of a massive sound in heaven, sometimes like the sound of an enormous (deafening?) waterfall. There are times in the Bible when we hear of “a still, small voice” and “peace, be still.” But there are also numerous times in the Bible where we are commanded to “make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.” Surely these passages give guidance for us in our temporal worship here, preparing us for the eternal worship we will find in heaven.
Without a doubt, congregational singing of hymns must always be one of the major elements of corporate worship, along with scripture and prayer and the preaching of God’s Word, etc. Our hymn singing is significantly improved by several things. These include the selection of hymns (are they singable, are they familiar – or learnable), are they placed in the service at the appropriate place in the liturgy), what instrumental accompaniment is utilized, and how do the acoustics of the room impact the singing (not too much carpet, draperies, cushions, sound-absorbing ceiling tiles, etc.). We who lead can also help the congregation by our rubrics in announcing hymns, informing them of the theme, and perhaps something about who wrote the words (John Newton?), who wrote the music (Martin Luther?), and a story behind its composition (as with “It Is Well with My Soul”).
By the way, to help with that, I am in the process of writing 3-5 page hymn studies each week that include that kind of background information, along with brief commentary on the text of each stanza. I have now completed 160 of those studies, and email them free each week to hundreds of you who have requested to be on my distribution list. If you would like to be added, email me here. You can find the entire set of hymn studies thus far here.
In conclusion, our worship should always be guided by what God has revealed in His Word. And there is a huge body of revealed truth in Scripture regarding worship, “from Genesis to the maps!” It has been a joy to consider that material over the years, not only in the worship I have planned and led in churches where I have served as a pastor, but also in the years that I taught the required “Reformed Worship” course as a seminary professor. We have in Scripture the timeless principles that should shape our theology and practice of worship, in whatever age we live and in whatever nation where we serve. But we need to distinguish between those abiding principles and the cultural practices and preferences of our particular time and place. I fear this article has not adequately distinguished between the two.
And let me add a few words about beauty. Our God is beautiful beyond description. Beautiful in the truths of His character. Beautiful in the acts of grace for His redeemed. Beautiful in His design of function, variety, and complexity in creation. Beautiful in His painting in vivid, kaleidoscopic colors all around us. We could go on and on and on with examples of His beauty. But He is also beautiful in the matter of sound and music. After all, who was it who invented and created musical sound, and who prompted the creation of man-made musical instruments (including the divinely made human voice), and who created the human ears that hear music and the minds that respond with appreciation to music-making? Revelation is filled with imagery of the beauty of heaven that includes not only the colors around His throne, but also the glorious sound of music sung by saints and angels. And so should we not strive for beauty in the music we create and offer to Him in our worship as a sacrifice of praise?So I join my voice to the many (thousands?) who came away from our General Assembly, thrilled to the bottom of our hearts with the worship in which we were privileged to participate, and grateful beyond words for the great work invested by those who planned, prepared, and led us into the throne room of God through the music. I’m already looking forward to next year!
Larry Roff, is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America, served as Editor of the Trinity Hymnal, and Organist for the General Assembly.
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Jordan Peterson: Why I Am No Longer a Tenured Professor at the University of Toronto
We are now at the point where race, ethnicity, “gender,” or sexual preference is first, accepted as the fundamental characteristic defining each person (just as the radical leftists were hoping) and second, is now treated as the most important qualification for study, research and employment.
I recently resigned from my position as full tenured professor at the University of Toronto. I am now professor emeritus, and before I turned sixty. Emeritus is generally a designation reserved for superannuated faculty, albeit those who had served their term with some distinction. I had envisioned teaching and researching at the U of T, full time, until they had to haul my skeleton out of my office. I loved my job. And my students, undergraduates and graduates alike, were positively predisposed toward me. But that career path was not meant to be. There were many reasons, including the fact that I can now teach many more people and with less interference online. But here’s a few more:
First, my qualified and supremely trained heterosexual white male graduate students (and I’ve had many others, by the way) face a negligible chance of being offered university research positions, despite stellar scientific dossiers. This is partly because of Diversity, Inclusivity and Equity mandates (my preferred acronym: DIE). These have been imposed universally in academia, despite the fact that university hiring committees had already done everything reasonable for all the years of my career, and then some, to ensure that no qualified “minority” candidates were ever overlooked. My students are also partly unacceptable precisely because they are my students. I am academic persona non grata, because of my unacceptable philosophical positions. And this isn’t just some inconvenience. These facts rendered my job morally untenable. How can I accept prospective researchers and train them in good conscience knowing their employment prospects to be minimal?
Second reason: This is one of many issues of appalling ideology currently demolishing the universities and, downstream, the general culture. Not least because there simply is not enough qualified BIPOC people in the pipeline to meet diversity targets quickly enough (BIPOC: black, indigenous and people of colour, for those of you not in the knowing woke). This has been common knowledge among any remotely truthful academic who has served on a hiring committee for the last three decades. This means we’re out to produce a generation of researchers utterly unqualified for the job. And we’ve seen what that means already in the horrible grievance studies “disciplines.” That, combined with the death of objective testing, has compromised the universities so badly that it can hardly be overstated. And what happens in the universities eventually colours everything. As we have discovered.
All my craven colleagues must craft DIE statements to obtain a research grant. They all lie (excepting the minority of true believers) and they teach their students to do the same. And they do it constantly, with various rationalizations and justifications, further corrupting what is already a stunningly corrupt enterprise. Some of my colleagues even allow themselves to undergo so-called anti-bias training, conducted by supremely unqualified Human Resources personnel, lecturing inanely and blithely and in an accusatory manner about theoretically all-pervasive racist/sexist/heterosexist attitudes. Such training is now often a precondition to occupy a faculty position on a hiring committee.
Need I point out that implicit attitudes cannot — by the definitions generated by those who have made them a central point of our culture — be transformed by short-term explicit training? Assuming that those biases exist in the manner claimed, and that is a very weak claim, and I’m speaking scientifically here. The Implicit Association test — the much-vaunted IAT, which purports to objectively diagnose implicit bias (that’s automatic racism and the like) is by no means powerful enough — valid and reliable enough — to do what it purports to do. Two of the original designers of that test, Anthony Greenwald and Brian Nosek, have said as much, publicly. The third, Professor Mahzarin Banaji of Harvard, remains recalcitrant. Much of this can be attributed to her overtly leftist political agenda, as well as to her embeddedness within a sub-discipline of psychology, social psychology, so corrupt that it denied the existence of left-wing authoritarianism for six decades after World War II. The same social psychologists, broadly speaking, also casually regard conservatism (in the guise of “system justification”) as a form of psychopathology.
Banaji’s continued countenancing of the misuse of her research instrument, combined with the status of her position at Harvard, is a prime reason we still suffer under the DIE yoke, with its baleful effect on what was once the closest we had ever come to truly meritorious selection. There are good reasons to suppose that DIE-motivated eradication of objective testing, such as the GRE for graduate school admission, will have deleterious effects on the ability of students so selected to master such topics as the statistics all social sciences (and medicine, for that matter) rely upon completely for their validity.
Furthermore, the accrediting boards for graduate clinical psychology training programs in Canada are now planning to refuse to accredit university clinical programs unless they have a “social justice” orientation. That, combined with some recent legislative changes in Canada, claiming to outlaw so-called “conversion therapy” (but really making it exceedingly risky for clinicians to do anything ever but agree always and about everything with their clients) have likely doomed the practice of clinical psychology, which always depended entirely on trust and privacy. Similar moves are afoot in other professional disciplines, such as medicine and law. And if you don’t think that psychologists, lawyers and other professionals are anything but terrified of their now woke governing professional colleges, much to everyone’s extreme detriment, you simply don’t understand how far this has all gone.
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