It's actually a sort of eerie feeling to be here for me because I must have watched, I don't know, maybe over a hundred, certainly many, many tens and tens and tens of sermons. that have been broadcast from this sanctuary over the years. I don't know, I sort of somehow imagined it was going to be about 10 times bigger than this or something. I don't know why, but maybe it's because the ministry was always so kind of big and powerful and persuasive. So much debt I owe to Dr. Cairns initially when I started listening to sermons and sermon audio. Then your own present pastor as well, Pastor Mercer, and just come to sort of feel as if it's almost like a second home, this sanctuary. So it's wonderful to be here among you. Why don't we read first of all from God's word in the book of Psalms and Psalm 42. Psalm 42. As the heart panteth after the water, so pants my soul after thee. O God! My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me. for I had gone with the multitude. I went with them to the house of God with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy day. Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. Oh my God, my soul is cast down within me, therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan and of the Hermonites from the hill Mizar. Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water spouts. All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command his loving kindness in the daytime. And in the night his song shall be with me, And my prayer unto the God of my life. I will say unto God, my rock, why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones mine enemies reproach me, While they say daily unto me, where is thy God? Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God. Amen. May God bless his word to us. I'd like to begin this evening with just a little bit of personal biography. And the reason I do that is really to underline that this is not just some kind of academic, theoretical interest of mine, but a passion that I believe in God's providence God has brought into my life. I was converted in my early twenties. I've just given my testimony at the sermon audio meeting, so I don't want to go over that again. But the Lord sovereignly, mercifully, and powerfully rescued me from a very worldly life, despite a good Christian upbringing. And the Lord was the seeker, not me. The Lord changed me radically. He made me love what I hated and hate what I loved. And shortly after called me into the ministry. At the time I wasn't sure what kind of ministry, but again over time, especially through a year spent in Eastern Europe, it became clear to me that it was pastoral ministry that I was to go into. My background had been finance, and I think probably at that time in my life I was a pretty factual kind of guy. Figures, facts, black, white, everything was in very logical, systematic categories. And because the Lord had worked unmistakably in my life, I suppose my early Christian years were marked by, I would say probably a lack of compassion, empathy, sympathy. It was all truth, truth, truth. And that's important. But there was very little sort of thought of how people were feeling and receiving what I was preaching. Looking back, In my early days of beginning to preach, I'm pretty sure it was pretty painful to a lot of people, especially those with emotional, mental sufferings in their lives. And I went through in our church, as I was going through seminary, we went through a time of great controversy, which actually ended up with our church dividing. Again, controversial times are again not the best of times for cultivating love and sympathy. It's, you know, one versus another and it's to the death and to the sword. When I was entering into the ministry in my first charge, a little congregation in the North West Highlands of Scotland, again, I definitely brought the zeal without knowledge, I would say, a bit into my early ministry. So there was a lot of truth, and a lot of theology, and a lot of standing up, and a lot of fighting for what was right, but looking back, recognizing very little, well, certainly not enough, pastoral love, sympathy. and really very little awareness, to be honest, of the kinds of mental and emotional sufferings that people can go through. Not having them myself, especially, and therefore really not sensitive to even the possibility. And looking back, now I realize there were a number of people in my first church that had these sufferings in their lives, and I was completely oblivious to it, if not insensitive to it. I was very much of the view that every mental, emotional issue could be solved by the Bible. All people needed was either more Bible or more faith in the Bible. And there's really no reason for somebody, for a Christian to be depressed. I mean, come on, what has the Lord done for us? Now the strange thing is that in the Northwest Highlands there's a huge incidence of depression in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland. Partly, if not mainly, it's for, as I look back now I understand, it's for really climatic reasons. It's a very long winter, short days, it hardly gets bright, very heavy overhanging clouds, very low. It's very drab, it's very grey, it's very cold, it's very wet, nobody does anything. And then, actually, that's kind of the summer. If you get my point. And there's a lot of alcoholism. And there's just a lot of sadness, although the Scottish Highlands look so beautiful behind the lovely cottages. In whitewashed homes, there's a lot of sadness and pain and sorrow. But I was utterly useless in terms of ministering to that. And I'm pretty sure people sensed that and did not come to me for counseling. Or if they did, I couldn't understand what they were talking about, really, and just encouraged them to pray and read their Bibles more. Well, the Lord sometimes leads us in a hard way to teach us important lessons, and that was certainly the case in this area of my life. I was called to another church, which was even more isolated. It was an island out in the Northwest Highlands. You'd probably fly over it if you're ever going to the UK or Northern Ireland. And the winters are even worse there. And the incidence of depression and suicide even, extremely high, is some years the highest in Europe. And I had people with depression in my church, more in that church, and it was more open as well. And again, I can remember one instance in particular where I went to visit in a home where at least the man, maybe the woman as well, was depressed through very painful providences in their lives. And I made them both cry with what I said and with my insensitivity. And I was kind of beginning to think, maybe I've not got this quite right. But it wasn't until the Lord brought this much closer to home that I really began to see the error of my ways. And that was when my wife came down with depression. And my wife is naturally a very bright and bubbly character. Vivacious, you might say. She's sort of the life and soul of anywhere she goes. She's far more sociable than I am. The last kind of person you would think that would come down with depression. She's also, as I've learned over the years, the most godly Christian woman I have ever met. I feel she puts me to shame. in terms of her spirituality. And yet, we entered a period in our lives when she couldn't stop crying. She would be even waking up in the middle of the night, certainly first thing in the morning, her heart pumping, pounding, unable to function really. And I just didn't know what was happening. And strangely enough, although she's a medical doctor, neither did she initially. At least she didn't want to face up to it. So both of us were very fixated on where is the sin? And of course, super sensitive me is especially concerned about that. But she too felt, you know, I must have done something awful. God hates me. He's cast me off. I can't be a Christian. She was finding even reading her Bible, nothing, just like reading a newspaper. She felt she couldn't pray. She had no sense of God's love. In fact, at times she said she felt God hated her. She's been a Christian for as long as she can remember, but felt she must have sent away God's blessing. Felt she was going to hell. Felt that life was not worth living. This is all around about the time of the birth of our third and fourth children, which looking back now, of course, we realize the connection, although we didn't at the time. And I would sit with Shona and I would say things like this, but I mean, Shona, look, the Lord's given us a lovely congregation and we're living in a lovely place here. You've got four great kids, and above all, you've got me. What could be better? And she would say, I know, I know, I know. I'm not thinking about these things and it's making me sad. I'm just sad, I can't explain it. We probably got pretty close to having to go to a mental hospital with her. And we left it far too long to get help. But you see, here's the problem. I'm a pastor. There's a stigma around depression. And we both felt, if we admit this and seek help, then people think, well, what kind of marriage do they have? Or what kind of pastor is that? What kind of husband is that, that his wife is so depressed? So there was a lot culturally, and in our ignorance, really putting off us going to get help. But thankfully, we eventually confided in Shona's father, who had been a pastor for 40 years, and he really just said, it's as clear as anything to me, Shona, you're depressed, you need help. And he had pastored many people in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland through this, And so we went to see a family practitioner, a Christian, who was just wonderful, began to sort of explain things, and put us on to a Christian who worked in a mental hospital in the mainland, who agreed to see us. I spent about two or three hours with us explaining what depression was. It was just like, here's me, I've been through seminary, I've been in the ministry now for seven years, and really, clueless. And I'm sad to say that's the case for the majority of pastors as well. But he really helped me, and Shona too, although she had dealt with many depressed people in her practice, He helped us both to see this for what it really was. A complex issue that could not be reduced to simply, what's the sin? Therefore, what do you need to repent from and believe in? He gave us a few resources to start researching and reading, especially for myself really. When Shona finally admitted, okay, that is it, she knew, she understood it was what was happening to her. For myself, it was a longer process, a lot of study, a lot of reading, a lot of talking things through, and it was a time of great conviction for me as well, because again, it's just realizing what a fool I had been, what an idiot, really, what a useless article of a pastor to my wife and to others. And over time, as I gathered resources together, I eventually decided to venture forth into a little series on depression in my congregation. That's what pastors do, you see, we read a few books and then we're experts, you know. Anyway, it was a good learning experience for me and It was amazing the result of it. It's far from perfect, but people in front of me I could see were going, aha, he gets it. He's beginning to dawn on him. And people began opening up to me in pastoral visits. began discussing things with me, helping me more understand the complexity of this issue. It's not just a spiritual. It's not just a physical. It's not just a mental. It's not just a social. It's not just a genetic. It's all of these things. And we'll go into that in a bit more detail in a moment or two. But that series of little lectures actually eventually turned into a series on sermon audio, which was which produced an amazing response, really, from all around the world. And actually, ultimately, through that Puritan seminary, got to hear about myself and my ministry, my involvement, small involvement in training of pastors in Scotland. And one thing led to another, and what it led to ultimately was me coming here to train pastors. in areas like counseling some years later. And I tell you that just to show you how God can use even our most, even our greatest follies and our foolishnesses and ignorance. And God can lead us through these things. And God brings sad things like depression into a young couple's life, family's life. And yet, what good can come out of it? And that's what I've seen now over many years in continuing to counsel people with depression, write about it, speak about it at conferences. I've seen again and again, those who have been through this and have been helped through it by the Lord, they are incredibly useful. in the church. It's like 2 Corinthians 1, they comfort others with the comfort with which they have been comforted of God. Now the fundamental issue in my mistake was this. we would call it dualism. And by that I mean this separating of the body from the soul, so that you have two, dual, dualism. And seeing every problem as either a spiritual or a physical problem. So for example, you've got something like cancer, well that's a physical problem. You've got something like adultery, that is a spiritual problem. You have something like depression, my conclusion, that's a spiritual problem. It involves emotions and feelings. That can't be anything to do with the body. And as I hope to show you in the remaining minutes, that is a very unbiblical view of humanity. God did not make us in a dualistic way. He made us body and soul which is intertwined and united and enmeshed and inseparable while we live in this world. So that spiritual issues affect the body and bodily issues affect the spirit as well. So, let me just give you some stats. We maybe don't realize how commonplace depression is. The estimates vary, but in any one year, it's estimated that 6% of men and 10% of women will suffer from depression over the period of a whole life, there's a one in five chance of us developing depression, a 1 in 10 chance of panic attacks, and they're often very related. So anxiety is often, it's now grouped together, it's often called depression anxiety. So you see the stats are high, and it's no different in churches. All the research shows that the statistics are the same. In fact, in some Surveys that showed that Christians suffer with depression even more. You say, well how can that be? Well, this is how it can be. You think about it. Christians have a lot more to be depressed about. We have a lot more to be joyful about, but if you think about the work of the Holy Spirit in a heart convicts of sin, it exposes your evil and your wickedness. That's a pretty depressing experience. Also, you see things in the world. You see evil and wickedness in a way that you never saw it before your eyes were opened by Christ. And your spirit is sensitized. I remember I used to watch movies before I was converted, with murder and slaughter. It didn't put me up or down. It didn't affect me in the least. I remember the first time I saw something after I was converted, I couldn't bear it. There's a sensitizing to the suffering and the evil in the world in the Christian spirit. And then you add to that the attack of the devil, who wasn't really interested in you before. And you begin to realize, well, actually, that it's conceivable that Christians could be more liable to depression than non-Christians. Now, it's not an easy condition to define. Whenever I do interviews about depression, that's almost the first question I'm always asked. Can you give us a quick definition of depression? And I always resist it. Because as soon as you do that, then a lot of people say, well that's not me. And yet it is them. And the reason is, depression varies so much. It varies with age, it varies with gender, it varies with temperament. And so, what you usually find in books on depression, is usually they list a number of symptoms, usually about 15. And they say if you can tick five or more of these, and you've had them for more than say two weeks, then you can classify yourself, or a doctor would classify you as depressed. Well, I like to try and group the symptoms of depression a wee bit more simply when talking with people. I think the first area is usually feelings. Depression's been described as a disease of the subjective, a disease of the feelings. That's usually what people are most conscious of. In a woman, it's usually overwhelming sadness, irrational crying and weeping. for no reason that even the woman herself can explain. And it might be manifested in that way in a man, but more often in a man, the symptom is anger, bad temper. Again, often irrational over tiny things, but repeatedly just outbursts of fury and anger. If you think of the thoughts, you move away from the feelings now to the thoughts, usually there's a lot of negativity in a depressed person's thinking. They're very negative about themselves, very negative about their families, negative about their jobs, negative about their churches. It tends to create a very hypercritical spirit that's turned upon themselves and on everybody else. In my little book, I go through 10 different kinds of false thinking patterns that depressed people will often experience. Even if you're not depressed, if you go through these, I think you'll find it very helpful. Even just to help you not to get depressed, it's sort of mental health first aid. So, there's feelings, there's thoughts, there's bodily symptoms too though. Doctors all around the country will tell you that every day their clinics and offices are filled with people with vague, non-diagnosable pains and aches. And they've had all the tests and all the x-rays and CT scans and there's nothing and yet they're in pain, they're fatigued, They can't eat, they can't exercise. It's just an all over malaise. And we should expect this too. And I'll come back to this. You remember Psalm 32 and Psalm 51, where the psalmist is speaking about his depression as a result of sin. And he's talking about his body. being broken, his body being fatigued, the pains, the aches, his loss of appetite. You see, the Bible teaches this link, this complexity between the body and the soul. So, some bodily symptoms. Spiritually, there's often this sense, as in my wife's case, that God hates me, God has abandoned me. I cannot be a child of God if I feel like this. And there's a withdrawal often from Christian fellowship as a result. And then in terms of behavior, you'll notice depressed people will often start doing things that are harmful to them, and stop doing things that are healthy and helpful to them. They stop going to church, they stop exercising, they stop calling up friends, they start watching TV all day, they start sleeping at irregular hours, they start overeating or not eating, and you just see this very damaging pattern of behavior and conduct. So these are the kinds of areas you're looking for when you talk to somebody, you think they might have depression, you want to talk to them about their feelings, about their thoughts, about even physical symptoms, about their spiritual state, and about their actions. And I always like to speak in terms of the length, the depth and the width of symptoms. Because we all feel down from time to time. So how do you distinguish depression from just, I'm having a bad day or a bad week? Well, in terms of width, If you think of these symptoms, these maybe 5 areas or the 15 symptoms, you need really a good batch of them. If you take 2, 3 or even 4 or 5, you really want to be up higher than that in terms of the 15. You should really be affected in all 5 of these core areas I've spoken of. In terms of length, It should be going on for about four weeks before you think about you being depressed. Most books will talk about two weeks. I think that's too soon. But if at four weeks you're still like this, it's not clearing up, you should be thinking about, I may be seeking a doctor's advice here. And in terms of depth, well, again, it's not just, you know, well, I feel a bit achy, I'm a bit tired, and yeah, I'm not feeling very joyful. No, there's got to be an intensity to it, a depth to these feelings for it to be classified as depression. So, that's the condition. What about causes? I'm just going to run through these. You can read more in the book. But obviously, sin, can cause depression, personal sin, as it did in the case of David. Clearly he went into a deep depression because of unconfessed sin, and we shouldn't be surprised. If we are persisting in a course of sin arrogantly and unrepentantly and we're a Christian, God isn't going to leave us innocent and free. He's going to chastise us. He's going to afflict us to draw us back to himself. So yes, sin can be a cause. Another cause is stress, and it's actually, in my experience, the most common cause of depression today, especially amongst young mothers. Not just young mothers, but really our society as a whole is living at an incredible pace of life. The lifestyle that we're leading is working too hard, sleeping too little, exercising too little. The body is not being given rest and refreshment and allowed to repair. The mind therefore is affected. Ultimately that is resulting in many cases in depression. It's like we all have a certain amount of fuel And we can pace ourselves and run that fuel out over some time and, you know, regular refueling. Or we can just go hard at it, 150 miles per hour for days and weeks, and then you just run out of fuel and you grind to a stop or crash. And that's the cause of many depressions today. Peoples are running down their bodies, running down their minds, and therefore the emotions and the feelings go with it. Psychology, the way we think, is another reason. If we are thinking negative thoughts all the time, if we're thinking in a catastrophic way, one bad thing happens and we think, whoa, it's going to be awful for the rest of our lives, and other negative thinking patterns like that, well, no surprise if we end up going downwards, downwards, downwards. If you think of somebody that's been raised in a very judgmental family, and nothing they've ever done has been good enough, and they've been extremely harshly disciplined or even abused, then no surprise if that person has a sort of default negativity in their life, a very self-critical spirit. that if dwelt on and allowed to develop is going to drag a person down. It's the way we think. Sin, stress, psychology, sickness. The brain is the most complicated organ in our bodies. And it's where our thoughts are processed. It has a very large role to play in our feelings. And it's fallen, just like our livers and our kidneys and our hearts and our lungs. That means that the chemicals, the plumbing, the electricity that's in this amazing organ is imperfect, broken. in all of us to one degree or another, and can be made worse by certain life events. For example, CT scans of children who have been abused growing up show different kinds of brains to those who have had healthy upbringings. I'm sure we all know people have been in accidents, and they've had a head injury, and their personality changes, their emotions change. Well, similarly the brain can be sick, chemically, electrically, physically, which can result in depression. If we really believe in the doctrine of sin, if we've got our anthropology right, this shouldn't be a problem to us. People speak of the brain, and I don't think we realize, but somebody, I think it was Harvard that recently came out with this research that showed that every single human brain, that's yours and mine too, have more switches in them. In one human brain, more switches than all the computers in the world. And sin has mixed all this up as well. So things are gonna go wrong up here. And then there's sovereignty. So you've got sin, you've got stress, you've got psychology, you've got sickness, and you've got sovereignty. God can touch us and bring us into a depression, just as he can bring us into cancer, into diabetes, into MS. God may sovereignly, wisely, lovingly do this to us for good and wise ends. So, what I'm trying to say to you here is, hopefully you're seeing the complexity of this. We can't just simply say body-soul. They're so intertwined. Body, soul, spirit, mind, our genes, our upbringings. It's just a very complex condition with many complex causes. And therefore, I'll close with this before we open up for questions, complex cures as well. My attempt to cure my wife with a prayer or with a Bible verse was too simplistic in her case. In her case, there was a mixture again of all these elements. I don't know the exact mixture, but there was definitely, as it were, sickness involved in the sense that she was totally run down after four children, a church division, homeschooling, a very busy husband in the pastorate. All these things combined with her own perfectionism, her own over-obliging nature, helping the whole world. Her little body eventually said, no, we're not doing this anymore, I'm sorry. There's sovereignty in it as well, obviously. And genetic factors too, with her coming from the Northwest Highlands of Scotland, that's in the genes, as it were, up there. Climatic factors too, she found it really difficult, these long, grey, dreary, drab winters. So, when we come to cures, we have to bear this complexity in mind, take a holistic approach. And of course, if it's sin, then yes, the cure is repentance. from sin and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And over time, with the blessing of the Holy Spirit, that will produce Christian joy in the heart again. But when I talk to people with depression, here's what I try to bring them to. I call it a garage with various service bays. And there's the service bay of repentance, of course. But then there's a service be of routine. Oftentimes a depressed person will lose all sense of routine. There's just a kind of disorder and a chaos and indiscipline in their lives. So that has to be reestablished again. Sleeping hours, eating times, just get a regularity and a rhythm. God is a God of order and he's made us in his image so that when our lives are orderly, we will flourish better and prosper. And so there's this importance of re-establishing routine. Then the third repair bay is rest. Re-establishing sleep, especially. In terms of length, in terms of the time going to bed and getting up again. For a young mother, probably as well, a nap during the day. A time to just have an hour or so to herself. Rest is so important, the Sabbath day rest as well. God has made us in such a way that we thrive again and flourish if we follow his pattern. Then there's recreation, the importance of exercise. I have a psychologist friend in Grand Rapids, he's a Christian, and I went to talk to him once about depression, and he said, well, David, I prescribe three pills to every person that's depressed. And I thought, oh, typical psychologist, you know, just throw the pills at everyone. He says, this is what I tell them, good sleep, good diet, and good exercise. And he said, in at least half the cases, that is sufficient to help a person back. to a healthy state again. It's just the basics of looking after our humanity, our bodies, because of the consequent impact on our thinking and our feeling and our souls. So, repentance, routine, rest, recreation, rethinking. We may need help in retraining our thoughts. Maybe a good biblical counselor or pastor can help us. Maybe a psychologist can help us. And this isn't some kind of psychobabble. If you read Psalm 77 or Psalm 42, which we read together, what's happening there is a rethinking process. You've got somebody who's down and out, and they're trying to get up and out of the pit. And the way they do it is their reasoning. They're saying, I feel this because of this and because of that. And then he says, yeah, but that's not true. And that's not true. And that's not true. This is what's true. And this is what's true. And this is what's true. And I'm going to think about that. And I'm going to believe that. And as I do, the emotions begin to pick up as well. So it's actually a biblical pattern, but we may need outside help. to get us into good thinking habits again. Rethinking. There's reprioritizing. Usually, certainly in the case of my wife, she just did too much on her plate. She was trying to do too much. We needed to be pretty ruthless in what she cut out, even in terms of Christian service and ministry. And I will often say to people who come to me with depression, I'm sorry, you have to stop serving in the Sunday school, or you have to stop visiting 25 seniors a week, or whatever, because they're just running themselves into the ground. And the priority is get back to mental health again, and strength. And then you can reintroduce these things in a more measured and balanced way. The last repair B is repair or replenish. In terms of brain chemistry, body chemistry, there may be a need for medication to help kickstart some of these processes that have been run down. Now, I have never ever seen medication help any depressed person who only relies on the medication. That doesn't work. It's got to be part of a package of these other repair bays. Routine, rest, recreation, rethinking, reestablishing fellowship in church, being in the means of grace. All these things have to be brought together. That's the best kind of mix or recipe. for medications to work as well and there are far too many people who just want the pill and they're not prepared to do other things and take responsibility and re-establish some good patterns in their lives and therefore they just don't work, it's actually damaging because all you get is side effects then. But there's a place, I've seen medication work extremely well in all cases where people have taken this holistic, responsible, disciplined approach to handling depression. So, different repair bays. Some might need longer in one bay than another. It's a matter of skillful, wise, medical, pastoral, counseling expertise build a team around you or the person you're caring for. I've kind of run out of time, but in the book there's a chapter on being a caregiver and how you can best help those around you who are suffering with depression. So, let me leave it for a time of questions. You can ask me about our own experience or some of these more technical aspects of depression, and I'll try my best to answer. Yes, sir. I have a two-tiered question. I took a couple of counseling classes at a university in the area I won't name, but we were taught, I guess, with the curriculum of J. Adams, and I guess I was wondering when you said you were doing a lot of reading, Because I guess I'm familiar with James Dobson's side that I guess I would consider more physical than J. Adams. But also, you were talking about the brain being sick. And I've read some of these books where they say that there's no evidence of the brain being sick. So how can we give a pill or a drug to something that we don't have Sure, it's a huge question that, but let me try and address it. I think there are two main errors we can fall into in addressing depression, and one is to take the all-spiritual approach, or the all-physical approach, this dualistic, it's one or other. I think a biblical anthropology, a biblical doctrine of humanity will show us that that is not a right view of man. It's true to say that the science is at an early stage compared to other areas of science. It's not like, cancer, CT scan, there it is. My daughter's got diabetes, I can do a blood test, there's the insulin problem. However, within the last seven to 10 years, the PET scan technology has radically improved and does show changes in the brains of depressed people and especially actually in the brains of those with schizophrenia and other psychosis. In fact, there's research just coming out of California quite soon, which is showing about, I think they found 300 common gene markers in those with schizophrenia, which is a huge advance, because then we can begin to target that. And it was also interesting that at the, the National Conference of the Association of Biblical Counselors this year, which has taken a largely, I shouldn't say that, but some in that movement have taken a more physical only approach. One of the main speakers did mention this research that was showing clear scientific evidence for brain changes and mental illness. So there's movement. And for myself, Jay Adams was a huge help to me. However, I would say most pastors, biblical counselors are realizing that while they did a fantastic job and restored counseling to the church and gave confidence to pastors to counsel and gave them tools and skills, that probably as an early reformer, maybe went too far. and subsequent generations of biblical counselors are coming back to a more balanced biblical position. But I think we have to be sympathetic to him because he was like in the vanguard of fighting against the secular invasion of the church. And like any early reformer, probably slashing away, you go a wee bit too far. And then God blesses the church with more thoughtful, balanced counsel. That's where I would say it's coming to a much more accurate position that's consistent both with the Bible and with science. Does that help? Yes, sir. I had a friend who committed suicide about eight months ago. And, you know, we pondered, you know, why he would do that, because his father is the wealthiest man in the state of South Carolina. But he does, my point, my question would be, could OCD contribute to his depression? Because he was very, in a bad case of OCD, could that contribute to depression? Yeah, I mean, OCD is incredibly exhausting. The constant agitation, mental, physical agitation is incredibly exhausting and depleting and almost inevitably results in depression. There's nothing more, is there anything worse than suicide? I've not found that anyway in pastoral ministry. If any of you are in touch with people you think may be suicidal, who are so depressed or whatever, you must ask them, are you or have you ever considered taking your own life? Ask them. Those who have survived suicide have often said, if somebody had only asked me, it would have stopped me. And the general expert opinion is, it's not like, oh, I might sow the seed and he'll go and do it. No. It's the opportunity for the person to finally kind of say, OK, I need help. And the second question is, if somebody says, yes, I have been thinking about that, do you have a plan? And if they do, that's an extremely serious situation. You need expert help. medically, even law enforcement perhaps. And especially if it's a man. Because although women attempt suicide much more, men are much more successful at it because they usually use more violent means. And if a man is thinking of committing suicide and has a plan, you have very little time. And you have to try and get expert help. If any of us ever end up in that place, I hope we don't, but do level with people, be honest and open and get the help you need. Yes, sir? extremes and these can turn into, when we're up to pride, when we're down to despair, those are indulging. Right. That's a good point, sir. I think you could say in two ways, yes. There's a rhythm to it in places like Michigan and Scotland with the winter. Every doctor will tell you there's a huge surge of people coming to them with symptoms of depression in the first few weeks of December, just before the winter turns. So there's no question that there's a light and climate impact that is a yearly rhythm to it, but what I always tell people who come out of depression is you're quite likely to fall back into this again. because what got you in there is usually fairly long-term ways of thinking and acting. Yes, you can, with help and counsel, get through these a little, but eventually you tend to default back. However, there's a big difference for those who go into a second depression, and it's this. They've come through it before, and they know they can get out of it again. That's a big difference, because depression is hopelessness. So if you're in a depression and you've got a little hope, that changes everything. The second thing is it's not usually so deep and it's not usually so long. Because again, you've learned from your previous experience what you need to do, what you need to stop doing. So, and again, the body changes too, and weakens with age. When we look back in my wife's life, we clearly actually now see she had a period of depression in her mid to late teens. It really wasn't recognized. So yeah, there is a cyclical nature to this. Right. Another good point. It's a very good point. I think that's the worst part of a Christian with depression. It's the guilt of having depression as a Christian. Because my view was, Christians can't get depressed. Or if this Christian is depressed, they're not a Christian. And that's why I called my book, Christians Get Depressed Too. Because they do, and one of the greatest things we can do for Christians is to remove the false guilt that is there in their lives. Maybe I could recommend to you, my book is, when I look back on it now, it's sort of, it's very theoretical. There's not much biography story in it. It's just a very short depression 101. We made five films a few years ago, and you'll get them on my blog, headhearthand.org. If you click on films, there are five films there, about 30, 35 minutes long each, where it's five Christians who have had depression, interspersed with experts and counselors and pastors speaking about it. And it brings a sort of human dimension into the equation. And people have found that very helpful as a... Well, some people, you know, books don't do anything for them, but, you know, they watch a film or two. And there's an African-American woman, there's a teenager, there's a man, there's a pastor, there's a young mother, there's an older woman. We're just trying to get the variety of pictures of this to show how varied and complex it is. Yes, sir. You know, a lot of this depends on where you are in the world. You take, for example, the culture I came from, there is a very large biochemical, physical element to it, in Michigan as well, actually. But from talking to other pastors and counselors in many other places in the more sunny South, maybe, where there seems to be an incredible incidence of depression as well, a lot of them feel that there is a much greater spiritual element to it in these areas. I don't know enough about these other contexts to really comment authoritatively on it. I think what you could say though is something could start spiritually but have still physical impact just as something can start physically and have spiritual impact on you. Say, for example, you take David, the psalmist there. He falls into this depression because of his sin. And he needs to repent. And as far as we know, he came out of that. But there are Christians who will fall into such a deep depression over their sin, that not even repentance will repair the physical wear, mental wear and tear. And they might need some brief, limited medication eventually. You don't run to this ever. I think that's, again, the extremes. You run straight to pills, or you won't have anything to do with pills. and it's to try and find for each person, each situation, the right spot, which is so difficult, but I think God is helping the church more and more to understand it and find help within the body of Christ. Bill. Well, I mean, it depends on the case again, but I can think of a few cases I've been involved in where the person is so deep and dark in a pit, they can hardly think. You could put a Bible in front of them for as long as they live and they wouldn't make head nor tail of it. You could put them on their knees and they couldn't string a sentence together. They can't comprehend what you're saying to them. They can't communicate back. That person's sort of like in the bottom of the pit. And no matter how hard and long you shout at them, they're not coming out of there. They need a ladder. They need a rope. And that's what I see the role of medication of, and it's to lift people just enough to help them start even mentally processing again, being able to think rationally here and understand what others are saying and begin to respond to it. So it's not like a cure, but it helps a cure to take place. Yes, sir? Do you ever find that when somebody comes to you for counseling, So what would you say maybe after the first meeting? People are always a wee bit perplexed when they come to me for counselling. There's maybe a good reason for that. Because I start talking to them about their sleep and their diet and how much are they exercising. I'm depressed. I say, I know, but when was the last time you went out for a date? When was the last time you went for a vacation? If you can persuade them that this is where we have to start, you can see pretty rapid progress from even just restoring sleep and routine to a life that's got so chaotic and disordered and indisciplined. And as that psychologist friend of mine said, often these three pills can do a ton of work. And again, I think it's probably just a wee bit oversimplistic, but it gets you to a place where you can really start really thinking about what got me into this, and how can I avoid this in the future? How do I need to think better? What's wrong in my spiritual life maybe? So yeah, you can make good early progress with these basic service-based routine, rest, relaxation, recreation, healthy food. Yes, sir? Yeah, yeah. Right. Well, here's the fascinating thing. You think of Elijah. He's totally depressed there, right? He's suicidal, in fact. Take my life. And he lies down and hopes to die in the desert. And what does God do? He sends him food, and he says, have a nap. And then he starts dealing with him. about his spiritual condition. But he saw that what he needed most at that time was good food and a good sleep.