Today I will share a message of encouragement, and exhortation, and the subject I will deal with is discouragement.
We live in a very challenging age, where corruption is a way of life, we are told it is alright to lie to get by.
We are constantly bombarded by the media and marketing strategies.
We are made promises which many of the companies cannot and will not fulfil.
The other day I was buying a mobile phone, and they began to tell how if I signed up I would get £750 a year, in line rental……Lie
It was a ploy to get me to sign up, and once you do you read the small print things are not so.
If you are one to watch these tele-shopping channels, when you watch them you think your life is empty unless, you by this product, they even have testimony service, they have a personal witness of somebody that has used the product and how it has changed their life.
Proverbs 13; Hope deferred maketh the heart sick; but the desire [that] cometh to pass is a tree of life.
The world give you empty promises for the sake of mammon
I find that even the church can sometimes misrepresent the gospel message in order to draw people to there church.
They use a pitch that is no different from the world to draw people, not realizing that Jesus said that no man can come to me except my father draw him first.
In other words they say come to Jesus he will give you a happy life, you`ll have everything you ever desired, just rub this bottle…..but Jesus is not a genie.
He will give you a life free from problems and trials.
I have Listed some of the popular TV ministry Titles:
Enjoying every day with Jesus
Abundant life…and overflowing life

Release to Increase

To me they are sales pitches and my experience can sometimes be different
So in this message I want to encourage you and at the same time be reel.
I want to first say to receive Jesus or in truth to be accepted in the beloved as Paul put it, is the most wonderful experience you can ever have in life, BUT, it will come with many challenges, persecutions and even disappointments.
I want to be honest with you this morning there was a time when Paul mentions in the book of
II Corinthians 1:8 For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life.
Paul says I DO NOT WANT YOU TO BE IGNORANT ABOUT THE FACT THAT THE TROUBLE I EXPERIENCED WAS SO BAD I FELT LIFE WAS NOT WORTH LIVING.
I do not believe Paul after being so candid would have the biggest church building, or the most popular tv ministry?
I believe from my heart that God is at this time raising up prophetic ministries, and churches that will know and understand Gods heart for the church, they will speak the truth, they will resurrect the truth that now lies in the street, as Isaiah speaks.
Paul preached the whole counsel of GOD, not just the juicy bits.
W hen Paul preached to Felix of the righteousness and even the judgment of God the man trembled. The only people that tremble today is flaky emotional charisma tics.

I want to encourage you through the prophets and patriarchs that you will face hard times but the Lord will bring you through.
Your family may not be like the Waltons (famous tv family)or the Brady bunch, you may not work in Blackfriars or embankment in a firm, you may not earn £100,000 a year, you may even have problems meeting the monthly bills, in fact you may even were overalls after you have cleaned you smell of disinfectant,
But I have Good news as long as you have Jesus you can make it through.
As you listen to that smartly dressed preacher that tells you to give even more money and buy his books, and support his extravagant lifestyle, and he tells you give even more to get a breakthrough, the only one getting a break is him through you as he flies his own Chartered Jet to Hawaii.
I was listening to a tape from AW Tozer and he said a church member came to him, he was in a Dilema, The man said his neighbors do not go to church, they are not even Christians, but they seem to have such a good life, there kids are doing well at school, they go on holiday twice a year, they never seem to have any trouble in their life, whereas I am always in a battle and struggle, I can hardly keep my head above water, I am not even sure if I will still have a job next week.
I was listening to a tape from AW Tozer and he said a church member came to him, he was in a Dilema, The man said his neighbors do not go to church, they are not even Born Again yet they do not have the problems I have and they are doing well in life. in Psalm 73 For I was envious of the boastful,
When I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For there are no pangs in their death,
But their strength is firm.
5 They are not in trouble as other men,
Nor are they plagued like other men.
6 Therefore pride serves as their necklace;
Violence covers them like a garment.
7 Their eyes bulge with abundance;
They have more than heart could wish………………7 Until I went into the sanctuary of God;
Then I understood their end.
18 Surely You set them in slippery places;
You cast them down to destruction.

it says the walk on slippery places
Ive been Ice skating a few times so I know what the writer is talking about.
Wicked prosper for a season but the blessing of God is lasting there was a nation he blessed 4 thousand years ago, and it still lasts, as I was driving through Golders Green, and saw the type of houses and environment, and knowing that I was in a Jewish area I said the blessing stands. God is faithful, time will tell.
I am going to show you both in the old and new testament, trials and test came to Gods people, but they overcame.
Joseph was in prison for righteousness sake, nearly 14 years
In the book of Samuel want you to understand that from the moment David was anointed he had great power to kill lions and giants, but he had his fair share of problems.
There is a price attached to the anointing you have, I will never forget that message that Mike shared about the weight of glory and compared it to the level of persecution.

I Samuel 30: 1Now it happened, when David and his men came to Ziklag, on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the South and Ziklag, attacked Ziklag and burned it with fire, 2and had taken captive the women and those who were there, from small to great; they did not kill anyone, but carried them away and went their way. So David and his men came to the city, and there it was, burned with fire; and their wives, their sons, and their daughters had been taken captive. Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and wept, until they had no more power to weep. And David's two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the widow of Nabal the Carmelite, had been taken captive. Know David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.

In other words you could say David hit a crisis point, a Zero hour, A time of testing,
Even his life was in danger.
He is on the run through no fault of his own, he is living like an outlaw, with six hundred men, they survived by raiding travelers, no safe place of abode. Living in the deserts, oh yes he was truly anointed, so anointed he had to rob to live, he even stayed with the philistines to escape Saul.
Yet maybe ten years or so earlier Samuel had anointed him King in place of Saul.
Look at him a the black Americans would say he is at his midnight hour.
An old song from the sixties says " beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden"
His wives along with the wives and children of his soldiers were kidnapped, houses burnt down, possessions stolen. He is in Crisis.
But David does not get depressed and blame God or doubt him, he doesn't murmur or complain, he is a soldier, he is enduring hardness as Paul gave this exhortation to Timothy.
He knows that this walk with God old or new testament you will face problems.
How would you feel if you return home from work or even a service at church to find your house burgled and then burnt, your wife children kidnapped.
Would you buy a Joyce Meyer tape ..how to be happy every day….. I don't think so!

David knew that the road would never be easy, and he also knew God grace and favor, and the bible says that David encouraged himself in the Lord.

It was god that delivered him from the bear and the Lion. It was God that delivered him from the Giant Goliath, it was God that would always rescue him from Saul who constantly sought his life.
God brought him through in the past and God would bring him through again.

Later on he was crowned King, and still more problems even as a King, family problems, Incest, murder, his own son Absalom dethroned him for a while, but he got through.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers them out of them all.
Trouble will always come but Victory is assured.
This is so different to what modern Christianity teaches us.
You see in life you may loose a few battles but yet win.
I remember a year when Arsenal had a long run without losing any football games. But coming up to the end they started to lose, they lost a few games but they won the league.
We may lose a few battles but we will get the victory through Jesus Christ.
I can take you into the new testament again and direct to the life of Paul.
Acts 27:10 & But after long abstinence from food, then Paul stood in the midst of them and said, "Men, you should have listened to me, and not have sailed from Crete and incurred this disaster and loss. And now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship.
and the rest, some on boards and some on parts of the ship. And so it was that they all escaped safely to land.

Even on broken pieces they made it through the storm.#
We will also make it, we may loose some things along the way but we will make it.
Jesus said in the world you will have tribulation, but fear not I have overcome the world.
We will overcome we will get through, God is on our side and the victory is assured through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.