DISCOURAGEMENT

1. Satan uses the weapon of fear to create discouragement and to keep us from doing God’s work. 

2. Israel's spies were afraid of the giants in the land of Canaan and discouraged the children of Israel 
from entering the promised land (Numbers 13:31–33): 
Now why are you discouraging the sons of Israel from crossing over into the land which the LORD 
has given them? This is what your fathers did when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land. 
For when they went up to the valley of Eshcol and saw the land, they discouraged the sons of Israel 
so that they did not go into the land which the LORD had given them (Numbers 32:7–9). 

3. Enemies living nearby frightened and discouraged the returning Jewish exiles from building 
a temple for God (Ezra 4:1–5): 
Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah, and frightened them from building, 
and hired counselors against them to frustrate their counsel all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, 
even until the reign of Darius king of Persia (Ezra 4:4–5). 

4. Enemies living nearby tried to frighten and discourage Nehemiah from rebuilding the walls 
of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 6:1–9): 
For all of them were trying to frighten us, thinking, “They will become discouraged with the work 
and it will not be done.” But now, O God, strengthen my hands (Nehemiah 6:9). "Discouraged with 
the work" in the NASB is literally ‘Their hands will drop from the work’—figurative language that 
expresses the idea of discouragement. 

5. Use the shield of faith to stop the flaming arrows of fear (Eph. 6:16).