I have not seen this level of discouragement among God's people. And I know there's a lot to be

discouraged about. I know that. I don't gloss over things. But continuous discouragement can

sap your energy. Continuous discouragement causes loss of hope. Continuous discouragement, if persisted, can be very destructive. In fact, continuous discouragement even can lead to all sorts of illnesses. And that is why I'm starting this short series from the Psalms entitled Encouraging Words in Discouraging Times.

No one suffered from discouragement like David.

Started as a shepherd boy out in the hills of Bethlehem and the fields.

He felt lonely at times, all alone, shepherding his father's flock, what with living

in the shadow of his older brothers. But precisely, those lonely times in the hills helped him

develop some of the most profound God-honoring prayers in a form of Psalms.

Question.

What do you do when you are discouraged?

What do you do when you are discouraged?

What do you do when you unjustly suffer?

What do you do when you are slandered and misunderstood by others?

What do you do? You plead your case with God, just as David did. So let's look at this Psalm, Psalm 28, under three headings. First of all, you see David places his confident

request before the Lord, verses 1 and 2. Secondly, David calmly presents a well-reasoned argument

before the Lord, verse 3 to 5. Thirdly, David receives a cause for rejoicing

from the Lord, verses 6 to 9. The first thing you see here is David places his confident request

before the Lord. Where does his confidence come from? From all of the things

he did for God? From any times he said, I kept your commandments and he would rejoice over the

commandments of God and laws of God, they're perfect and so on and so forth. No, David's confidence

not based on his rightness or even the

rightness of his cause. Listen to me. I know that sometimes you know you're right and you're

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