Sermon Illustrations
No Reason for Discouragement
John W. Yates shared this letter from a missionary who had gone into the jungles of New Guinea:
"Man," he said, "it's great to be in the thick of the fight, to draw the old Devil's heaviest guns, to have him at you with depression and discouragement, slander, disease! He doesn't waste time. He hits good and hard when a fellow is hitting him. You can always measure the weight of your blow by the one you get back. When you're on your back with fever and at your last ounce of strength, when some of your converts backslide, when you learn that your most promising inquirers are only fooling, when your mail gets held up and some don't bother to answer your letters, is that the time to put on your mourning suit?
"No Sir! That's the time to pull out the stops and shout hallelujah! The old fellow's getting it in the neck and he's giving it back. And all of heaven is watching over the battlements: 'Will he stick it out?' And as they see who is with us, as they see around us the unlimited reserves, the boundless resources, as they see the impossibility of failure with God, how disgusted and sad they must be when we run away. Glory to God! We're not going to run away. We're going to stand."