Chapter 2 is entitled The True Foundation. And the biblical text Lloyd-Jones uses as a springboard for this chapter is Romans 3.28. Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Therefore, Paul says, we conclude As it pertains to the gospel, the message of salvation, that a man is justified, he is declared righteous by faith without the deeds of the law. And reviewing the chapter, the first thing Lloyd-Jones does in chapter 2 is give a brief review of chapter 1. And Lloyd-Jones reiterates the reasons why he feels the need to speak on the subject of spiritual depression. Along with the fact that spiritual depression is a very common reality among those who profess the name of Christ, the first motivating reason why Lloyd-Jones is addressing the topic at all is because, as he says, it is very sad that anyone should remain in such a condition. as he looks over the church as the whole, as he looks over his individual flock, the sheep within his flock that he's pastoring, he is taking sincere notice that it is a very sad and unfortunate thing that anybody should struggle with spiritual depression. So the doctor, as we call him, addresses this subject, with a desire to help people find solutions to their feeling of hopelessness. Lloyd-Jones, who used to be a physical doctor, now a spiritual doctor, a spiritual physician, as a pastor preacher, Lloyd-Jones wants to prescribe spiritual medications to spiritual ailments that the believers are facing. So that's the first motivating reason why Lloyd-Jones is addressing the topic. It's very sad that anyone, especially professing Christians, should remain in such a condition. And then Lloyd-Jones notes that the second main reason he feels pressed to speak on the subject of spiritual depression stems from the fact that Christians, who are constantly depressed, are very poor representatives of the Christian faith and of the gospel. And in the middle of page 23, Lloyd-Jones says, quote, In a world where everything has gone so sadly astray, we, as Christians, should be standing out as men and women apart, people characterized by a fundamental joy. End quote. And he goes on mentioning that God's people in both the Old and New Testaments were people who exemplified a life of peace, joy, and contentment despite their circumstances. Lloyd-Jones says that Christian people in the Bible are characterized as those who live triumphant lives. as those who are more than conquerors through Him, that is Christ, who loved us. And breaking away from the chapter for a moment, thinking of this truth from a biblical perspective, we find that this is so. What Lloyd-Jones is saying is a valid point. So let's give some examples. Well, in Scripture, specifically the book of Genesis, we read that Joseph was a man who trusted in the Lord, despite being abandoned by his brothers and not being able to be around his father, being taken to a strange land as a slave, being falsely accused by Potiphar's wife, and then ending up in a dungeon. We read that Joseph knew what it was to trust the Lord and find joy in Him. Job, here was a man who feared God and turned away evil. Job lost everything. He lost his farm. He lost his health. He lost his wealth. His wife tells him, are you going to maintain your integrity? Why don't you curse God and die? His friends come and accuse him of doing wrong. And that's the reason why they presume all has come upon Job's life. And yet we read that Job continued to worship God in spirit and in truth. Job maintained his integrity through it all. He wasn't perfect by no means. We do read of Job struggling, but he wasn't going down, down, down, down, down in depression. No, Job was a man who said, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. He knoweth the way that I take, and when he hath tried me, I will come forth as gold. So he's up and down, he's up and down, but he's not one of these down, down, down, getting depressed and discouraged and depressed and darker and darker, month after month, year after year. It's a roller coaster. But we do find him holding on to the joy and strength that is in the Lord. And then when we look at New Testament Christianity, specifically the first century church, what do we find? Well, in the book of Acts, Saul and his cohorts, as they come persecuting those who are of the way, we read that being scattered from their homes and communities, New Testament believers went everywhere joyfully preaching the word. Now think about that. If you were driven from your house in your community, You might be tempted to do one of these. Well, woe is me. What am I going to do now? But here they were, New Testament Christianity, optimistic. Well, God must be sending us somewhere else to preach the gospel to lost souls. So you see, there was an inward joy, an inward confidence that God is in control, and He is good, and He is going to accomplish His purposes, even in the midst of great trials. And then Peter and John. We read of the abiding joy that they had in great persecutions. They were threatened not to teach and preach in the name of Christ, and yet they obeyed God rather than men. And we read, having been beaten by authorities for doing the opposite of what they've commanded, the Scripture says that they rejoiced, that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Christ's name. They rejoiced in the scars on their back. And then we have the well-known illustration in Acts 16, Paul and Silas praying and praising the Lord in the inner prison with their feet fast in the stocks at midnight. What did they do? All they were doing is the mission of the Lord. They were doing everything God wanted them to do. And it landed them in jail. But we read there, though they were in jail, they rejoiced in the Lord. So Lloyd-Jones is correct in his biblical observation regarding the biblical characteristics of true Christians. True Christians, according to the Scriptures, are characterized as a people who exhibit the fruit of the Spirit. True Christians, according to the Scriptures, are those who find happiness not in their circumstances, but in the Savior. True Christians, according to the Bible, are described as conquerors. Those who demonstrate that the joy of the Lord is their strength, their song, their salvation, even during times of great trial. And this is the underlying truth of the parable of the sower, the parable of the seed. You remember that? That story, that parable? Well, Jesus teaches us in that parable that false believers profess for a time and then they fade away. They produce no lasting fruit. But true believers, Persevere. True believers fall seven times, but they get up again. Why? Because greater is He that is in them than he that is in the world. So, lasting joy. False believers might have a joy for a season, but it's not rooted in their soul. It's not really rooted in their heart. It may be rooted in the experience. It may be rooted in an emotional, sentimental, worship service one day, or one week, or one time, and then fade away. But true Christians, who have the Spirit of God, walk in the fruit of the Spirit, which is joy. Joy. So again, Lloyd-Jones' assessment of what a true Christian is, in Christ, according to the Bible, is a valid point. And continuing in his review of chapter 1, we find Lloyd-Jones mentioning the main causes of spiritual depression and the general treatments of it. And to help us remember what we read in chapter 1, let's take a moment to review both the causes and the treatments. Do you remember? There were four causes that Lloyd-Jones gave in chapter 1. This is still review. Four causes. What is it that causes discouragement? depression, hopelessness in the Christian life. Well, number one can be one's temperament, one's disposition. Right? We're all different. We all have different strengths and weaknesses. There are things that bother you that may not bother somebody else. There are things that may cause you to lose sleep that may not cause somebody else to lose sleep. And you might point your finger back at them and say, why are you losing sleep over that? That's such a little issue. And they might point the finger back at you. Well, why are you losing sleep over that? That's such a little issue. But God has made us different. So one's disposition can be a cause of discouragement, depression. So he says, knowing that, we need to know ourselves. We need to know our strengths and our weaknesses. We need to be careful and watchful of those things that can lead us down that pathway of doubting and anxiety and mistrusting God. Another cause of spiritual depression is one's physical condition. Lloyd-Jones mentions that physical ailments can tend to provoke depression. How true this is. Being tired, overstrained, illness can cause us to be prone to attacks of spiritual depression. And the example he gave from scripture was Elijah. There he was, he had this great contest on Mount Carmel. God used him in a remarkable way. But no doubt, even in times of great victory, there are so many emotions, so many feelings. And coming down off the mountain, he was both tired and hungry. And being tired and hungry, and maybe even hangry, he says, there's nobody else but me. I'm the only prophet. Does God even care? I wish I was dead. So, physical ailments, tiredness, over strain, can produce spiritual depression. Interesting, Jesus, knowing this, encourages his disciples, who are busy about the Lord, to take breaks. Go off and rest a while. And he showed by example, not that he needed a break, so to speak, but in his humanity he did. But he was showing by example the need if you minister and minister and minister, you give, you give, you give, but you don't receive, the rubber band can only stretch for so long before it snaps and it hurts yourself and others. So take times to rest. Mark chapter 1, in the busiest time of Jesus' ministry, He escaped and then the disciples came saying, Lord, hello, we have a line of people waiting to see you. Don't you care? What are you doing? I'm spending time with the Father. I'm nourishing my own soul because, as we are reminded when we step onto an airplane, we are only useful to others as we put our oxygen mask on ourselves. Put your own oxygen mask on yourself before assisting others. And so this is a helpful, helpful, valid point. We can only be a help to others who are discouraged if we are staying encouraged. Number three, another cause of spiritual depression is the devil. The adversary of our souls. The devil wants nothing more than to strip your joy away from you. The devil's one object, Lloyd-Jones says, is to depress God's people so that he can go to unbelievers and say, look, there are God's people all depressed and sad. Don't you want to be like that? Here they say they have the greatest message in the world, and they go to church like this. Don't you want to go to that church? This is a valid point. We need to be careful of the enemy's attacks. He's subtle. He hurls fiery darts at us. He knows how to trip us up. He will do everything and anything he can to steal away our joy, to get our eyes off of Christ, to keep us from resting in his promise. So there's a third cause. Spiritual depression, the devil, the adversary of our souls, And then the final ultimate cause of spiritual depression is our own personal unbelief. Our own personal unbelief. If we are depressed, it is because we are listening to the devil, the father of lies. We are not exercising faith in God as we ought to. Faith. Without faith, It's impossible to please God. We're saved by faith. But we're also sanctified by faith. We just sang the song. What overcomes the world? Faith! Faith gives us what? The victory! Faith in what? Faith in ourselves? No. Faith in other people? No. Faith in God. Faith in His Word. Faith in who He is. Faith in what He has done. Faith in what He has promised to do. Faith. We need to exercise faith. Fully relying on God. Trusting in Him with all of our heart. You're depressed? He says the main cause is your lack of faith. Believe that all things work together for good. Believe that God is sovereign. Believe that through your trying circumstances, he's molding you into the image of Christ. Faith, we need faith. Believe that he will never leave you nor forsake you. Faith. Isn't this our daily battle? Isn't this our struggle moment by moment? Even now as I'm speaking to you, you have two ears and they're being pulled every which way. Well, I know the pastor's right, but I know the but. Faith. Faith, faith. Jesus could not do many mighty works in his own hometown because of their unbelief. You read the book of Matthew and you will see that Jesus did wonderful things to those who had faith and he passed by those who did not have faith. So Jesus responds to our faith. He says one of the reasons why people are so discouraged and depressed is because they don't believe. Let's just take this a step further and add to it. Well, if we don't believe that the scripture is sufficient to encourage us and we don't read it, we're not going to be encouraged. If we don't believe the Lord's day is important, if we don't believe that God has established his church for our encouragement, for our spiritual strengthening, we're not going to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. We're going to stay depressed. You see? So we need to believe that God's ways are the right ways, and when we do so, and we exercise the means that He has prescribed, we will be encouraged. Four causes. One's temperament, one's physical condition, the devil, and then our own personal unbelief. And then the treatments. What is the medication? Well, he says we must deal with the problem. We must do something about it. If we're discouraged, we can't just sit there and pretend that it's not a reality. That's not going to help us. If somebody is physically sick and they just sit back and say, I hope one day I just find a way out of this without going to the doctor, without taking medication, without trying something. He's a doctor. He says they're going to remain in their condition. So if you're discouraged and you know you're discouraged, do something about it. Take action. And specifically, he says, one of the ways you can take action is you must talk to yourself instead of allowing yourself to talk to you. And Lloyd-Jones notes that this is what the psalmist does in Psalm 42. He is preaching to his soul. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why? What's the reason? God is so good. He's so gracious. He's merciful. You have salvation. So why? What's the cause? Why? Art thou disquieted within me? You have food in the cupboard. You have money in the bank. You have clothes on your back. Why? Why are you discouraged? Why are you cast down? Search it out. Find the reason. There's a reason. Something's causing it. What is it? So you need to take yourself in hand. You need to preach to your soul. And you need to tell yourself that you have cause to trust in God. And this is the essence of the treatment for spiritual depression in a nutshell. What is it? To examine yourself. To reprove yourself. Stop With the anxiety. Stop with the distrusting. Stop with the self-pity. Stop with the complaining and murmuring and backbiting. Stop it. You think the pastor's responsibility to preach on Sunday is the main preaching that you need throughout the week? It's not. The main preaching you need throughout the week is you preaching to you. With the Word of God. So you don't feel like doing something God wants you to do. So you tell yourself, we are not to operate on feeling, we are to operate in truth. So feelings, feel this. You start talking to yourself in the grocery store, people think you're a little wacky, but you can invite them to our Sunday school program on spiritual depression, then they will know what we're doing. The whole Calvary Baptist Church is in the community talking to themselves. There's that weird church. Lloyd-Jones says, but you need to. You need to preach to yourself. What is preaching? Paul told Timothy, reprove, rebuke, exhort. The preacher does it, Lord's Day by Lord's Day. You need to do it to yourself. Do you do this? I do this all the time. Casey, you fool. Why are you thinking like that? Lord, I don't want these thoughts. Get rid of them. Please help me. They're not good. They're not honoring to the Lord. Casey, if you continue down that pathway, look at the pastors who are now statistics. Casey, you better die to your pride. You better die to that self-sufficient spirit. Do you do this? Children? When you don't want to obey mom and dad? Preach to yourself. God says, honor your father and mother. When you want to be lazy, preach to yourself. Go to the end, thou sluggard. You're being a sluggard. Stop it. It's not right. Here's what God commands. Preach to yourself. And then in this preaching to ourselves, we need to remind ourselves not just of our faults. We need to remind ourselves of who God is. what God has done and what God has pledged Himself to do. So we take the Word of God and we preach to ourselves, well, I'm struggling in this area of life. I'm worried about tomorrow. God's Word says, take no thought for tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of the things of itself. I'm preaching truth to myself. I'm seeking to suppress that anxiety that will lead me into spiritual depression. That's why you need to know the Word. You need the sword of the Spirit to fight. You can't be a conqueror without knowing the Word, without praying. So there's the review, the general causes and the treatments. So helpful to know and get into the depths of our minds. Now, moving past the general consideration of spiritual depression, Lloyd-Jones, in chapter 2, lays forth the true foundation of faith in God, which is the foundational problem and the root cause of spiritual depression. The root cause of spiritual depression is a misunderstanding of the way of salvation. Now, I don't want to sound ultra-critical of Lloyd-Jones in this point, but it seems to me that throughout the chapter he's a little cloudy, he's a little shy on addressing the problem straightforward. And what I mean by this is, one moment he says the problem of spiritual depression is Christians not understanding the nature of salvation or justification, and in the next moment he gives examples of John Wesley being lost, individuals who grew up in a Christian home or upbringing having a superficial faith, and then he mentions the Pharisee is trying to obey the law. And I get his tension, but I wish he would have been more direct, more clear, because he's right. when he says that the main cause of spiritual depression among the collective church lies in the fact that there are people who do not understand the depth of their sin, they do not understand their need for the Savior. What he is basically saying is, they probably are not true Christians. And that's what I would say, straightforward, directly. The reason why so many among Christianity, so to speak, in a broad sense, are so depressed day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, is because they've never truly been born again. They have a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof. They profess Christ with their lips, But their heart is far from God. They're without the Spirit, and being without the Spirit, they're without light and life. Being without the Spirit, they don't have the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, and peace. So I'm persuaded that so many people in churches are depressed is because they do not have the root joy. which is joy unspeakable and full of glory, a peace that passes all understanding. And for those of you who are truly born again, you know exactly what I'm saying. Life is hard. Life has many struggles. But you know, when you came to faith in Christ, you had a new foundation. You have a new heart, a new perspective, a new friend in Jesus Christ. You know it. But those who are without Christ and without the Spirit, who think themselves to be saved, are struggling because they're still in darkness. The light of the gospel has not penetrated their heart and transformed them. So to be fair, this is what Lloyd-Jones is getting at in the second chapter. He's basically saying to try to live as a Christian without being a true Christian will only bring misery and defeat. That makes sense. And if I've seen it once, I've seen it a thousand times. People come to church, people sing along with the songs, they nod their head at the preaching, they go through the motions, they know the Bible stories, they adhere to Bible doctrine, but they are empty inside. Christianity to them is all about rules and regulation. It's a tradition. It's something that they've always done. It's something that they feel like they have to do. It's something that makes them feel good for one hour on a Sunday. So, following the Lord to them becomes heartless. It's mechanical. It's dead. It's dry. It's routine. There's no real union and communion with Christ. Their heart is not in it. And because their heart hasn't been transformed, their soul hasn't been justified, declared righteous, united with God. And that's what Lloyd-Jones is getting at. That's the foundation of all depression. We can't go on and talk about other helps in the Christian life for depression unless we're operating on the foundation. And the foundation is the gospel. The foundation is salvation. So this being so, Lloyd-Jones presents two necessary elements that are gospel realities among all who have truly come to faith in Christ. And number one is a proper understanding of sin. And under this first point, Lloyd-Jones mentions that a true believer must come to know their lost condition before they're ever saved. They, the sinner, must see sin not in terms of action, but in terms of who they are before God. And then he notes that there is a difference between seeing sin as external and seeing sin as internal. The Pharisees saw sin as it relates to the external, the obeying of the law, the washing of the hands, the keeping of the Sabbath day, external. And then here comes Jesus preaching sin as it relates to the heart. So, if one is to be saved, Lloyd-Jones goes on and says, One must experience a godly sorrow that works repentance unto salvation. There must be a loathing of sin. We must come to know our sin, not by looking to others and comparing ourselves with them, but by coming face to face with the law of God. For a person to be saved, they must see that they are a sinner and that they are a great sinner. And the illustration given in scripture that meets this, where Lloyd-Jones is inserting it, is the Pharisee and the Publican. The Pharisee saw sin as external, comparing himself with others. Well, God, I thank you that I am not like that man. I do X, Y, Z. And then the publican would not lift up his eyes and just said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I know my heart. I know I've broken your law. I know I'm not worthy of heaven. Father, be propitious to me. Have mercy. Save me. He knew his sin. He was broken over it. So he says we need to see our sin like that before we come to saving faith in Christ. And then connected with that is point number two, a proper understanding of the cure for sin in Jesus Christ. And he mentions that Jesus did not come to call the righteous. He didn't come to call those who are well. He came to call sinners to repentance. Jesus says, they that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. So if one is to be saved, they must look to Christ and Christ alone. Not to their good works, not to some repetitious prayer that they prayed a long time ago, not to the baptistry, not to their church affiliation. They need to look to Jesus Christ alone, by faith in Him, by grace through faith, Jesus Christ alone. That's the foundation. If you want to have true joy in the Lord, you'll never have it without the Lord. You can't have true joy without the source of true joy. That makes sense. We can't have electricity unless we're plugged into the electricity. So we need to be united with Christ through the gospel. So Lloyd-Jones concludes by pressing this on the hearts of his readers, asking them if they've truly come to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he asked if they've actually been justified through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. And then I might conclude by asking you, have you come to believe? Has there been a time in your life that you can look back at? and recognize a time of conversion, a time where God saved you out of darkness, out of despair, and brought you into his marvelous light. Have you been born again? I didn't ask if you started going to church. I didn't ask if you were confirmed. I asked, has God transformed your heart? Has he given you a new heart with new affections, new desires? And looking over the course of your life, take the last 20 years, can you see a growth in Jesus Christ, or is it all decline? If it's all decline, you should be concerned. If you're not making any progress at all, you need to examine your salvation. Because the Christian life involves progress. Even if it's four steps forward and three steps backwards, you're still moving forward. The Bible knows nothing about taking two steps forward and then four steps backward. Two steps forward, no, that's not the way of the Christian soldier. God does not allow his sheep to be defeated. God does not allow his soldiers to live in ultimate defeat. So examine yourself, see if you're in the faith. Now, before I turn to questions and comments, opening up on chapter 2, can you think of two instances in Scripture that illustrates the point Lloyd-Jones makes in this second chapter? Being lost, not being justified, and therefore being depressed. I'm thinking of two in particular. Can you think of anyone in Scripture who this relates to? They may be religious. But they didn't have that hope of eternal life. They didn't have the assurance that all things were well with God. Two individuals I'm thinking of. There might be more. Can you think of anyone that this... I have Nicodemus. Yeah, Nicodemus. Ruler of the Jews. He knew the scripture. He was a Pharisee. But he came to Jesus by night. Why? But was he a Christian? Was he saved? When he came to Jesus by night? Right. He was trying to establish his own righteousness as a Pharisee. That's why he came to Jesus by night. He was empty. Being a Pharisee wasn't satisfying him. And that's why Jesus preaches the gospel to him. Nicodemus, if you are to see the kingdom of heaven, Therefore, you're not right now, you're in a lost condition, but if you are to see the Kingdom of Heaven, you must be born again. You haven't been born again, you need to be born again. You're lost. You go to synagogue, you teach the scriptures, you pray, and you pray diligently, you're a moral man, you keep yourself from adultery and murder and all these excessive sins. Congratulations, Nicodemus, but guess what? You're still miserable, aren't you? So what do you need? You need the Spirit of God. You need salvation. You need joy. And we have testimony of Scripture after John 3. He came to faith in Christ. So there's the great illustration. Depressed, downcast, without hope, without God, without peace. Very religious. Very God-fearing, but not saved. Not justified. Nicodemus. Who else? Who else? That's who I was thinking of too. The rich young ruler. So we think of him coming to Jesus and what does he boast of? Look at how holy I am. From my youth up, I've been in Sunday school. My mom and dad were solid Christian people. I haven't murdered anyone. I haven't committed adultery or fornication. I know the scriptures. I pray. I do, do, do, do, do. What can keep me? Remember what Jesus told the rich young ruler? Remember how he left? If you want to have eternal life, sell everything you have and give it to the poor. Is Jesus teaching a work salvation in that? No. He's hitting on this first point of the gospel. What is it? Sin. He has to deal with his sin, his idolatry. Before he sees his need for Christ, he needs to see how empty he is and how empty his riches are. If he's finding satisfaction in riches, that's his God. So he needs to deal with his sin, but he's not willing to do so. And the Bible says he left sorrowful. He left depressed. What a sad story. Here, very religious, very wealthy, very honored in the community, very miserable. He needed the gospel. He needed Christ. He needed salvation. That was the root cause. Have you seen instances like this in church? Throughout the years? Christian schools? People who come, sit in the services Sunday by Sunday? It's a very real reality. The root cause.