Well, guys come in. We have a couple of chairs there and you see on your notes, their class five is on the topic of depression, depression. I have a couple of small booklets right here. Help, I Am Depressed. If you've not seen these, they're very, very good. These are extras. Feel free to come and take one later if you'd like one. They are very well written for you or for you to be equipped or to give to someone. You're most welcome to take them and use them and hand them to others if you'd like. Today's class is really kind of building on the last month. We've talked about the foundation of the sufficiency of the word of God. Mike taught on that. Then we talked about the doctrine of man, anthropology, a biblical understanding of who man is, what man is. We've talked about how people change. We've tried to wrap our minds around just kind of what the Bible says about these very important topics relating to biblical counseling. Last week was suffering. Today, and really kind of from here on out, we're kind of zooming in. It's like the camera is zooming in on particular topics. Today, we're going to look at depression. Next week, we're going to talk about sexual sins. The week after that, we'll talk about the fear and worry and anxiety. The week after that, we will talk about anger and control. And then really when we come into the month of March, we're going to kind of zoom in on some family related topics and family related issues. They all sort of overlap, I suppose, in different ways. But today we come to section five on depression, providing biblical help and hope for those who are going through the dark night of the soul. I want to read the first three quotes. And then I want to read a little bit from a book on depression called The Stubborn Darkness here. But look at the top quote here in your notes. In depression, the new way of living is to believe and act on what God says rather than feel what God says. It is living by faith. Guys, really, if I could kind of summarize today's study, It's our Christian life is still to live by faith, even in the very, very difficult times of life. Jay Adams, a biblical counselor, put it like this in the next paragraph down. The key to warding off depression then is this. Do not follow your feelings when you know that you have a responsibility to discharge. Instead, against your feelings, you must do as you should. And when you do, even if at first you do so mechanically, simply because you want to please God and you know that he wants you to do this, in time your feelings will change. That's a key sentence. We'll come to that later. You must not wait until you feel like it, or you may never feel like doing that task. Nor must you try to change your feelings directly. You can't do that. Do what you know God wants you to do. I love this. Whether you feel like it or not. And the change in feelings will take place as a byproduct in time. Bob Somerville has a tremendous book. Guys, if you just turn to the back of your packet, I put here five books and I put them in order. Now, if you battle with depression, you've got to get number one. This book was written by a biblical counseling professor at the Masters University who battled with depression, Bob Somerville. If I'm a Christian, why am I depressed? It's a must get. You got to read it. You got to get it. If you have somebody in your family or somebody that you know and love, I kind of put them in order of my preference, whether that is authoritative or not, you decide. But I think number one and number two are very, very helpful, and the rest are good as well. But this third quote on the front of your outline is from Bob Somerville. There is one who can conquer the deadly foe of depression. He does not live in a world oblivious to pain and unaffected by suffering. He felt every pain. He endured every test. He was forsaken and abandoned by all, yet his life conquered the darkness and turned evil into good and death into life. Hope is found in a living and real person, Jesus Christ. Ed Welch has a book called Depression, Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness. I wanna begin by reading some descriptions. What is depression like? We don't deny it. We don't deny pain. We don't deny hardship. We don't deny the dark night of the soul. Hell. If there's a hell on earth, it is to be found in a melancholy, depressed heart. The images of depression are dark and evocative, desperately alone, doom, black holes, deep wells, emptiness. I felt like I was walking through a field of dead flowers and I found one beautiful rose. But when I bent down to smell it, I fell into an invisible hole. I heard my silent scream echo through and pierce my empty soul. My heart is empty. I feel as though I died a few weeks ago and my body hasn't found out yet. Depression. involves complete absence. The mental pain seems unbearable. Time stands still. I just can't go on, said a 12-year-old. I am now a man of despair. I feel rejected, abandoned, shut up in this iron cage from which there is no escape. The iron bolt mysteriously fastens the door of hope and holds our spirits in gloomy prison. But depression is not just pain. It's meaningless. It feels like meaningless pain. What tortures many people is the fact that they don't die. Exhaustion combined with sleeplessness is a rare torture. The pain seeps into everything. There was no control on my mind. Thoughts ravaged me. Brutally harsh ideas, thoroughly crushed ideals, incomprehensible feelings. My mind is stuck. Being alone is terrifying. Abandonment is a constant fear I have. I fear everyone and I fear everything. Making decisions? That's impossible. My mind is locked. How can you choose? Know something for certain? The only certainty is that my misery is going to persist. The only thing that you know as a depressed person is that you're guilty, shameful, and worthless. It's not that you have made mistakes in your life or sinned or reaped futility. It's that you are a mistake. You are sin and you are futility. It can be quieter for some people. Instead of a bottomless abyss and howling in the brain, maybe life is flat, gray, and cold. Nothing holds any interest for you. You're like barely a walking zombie. Everything is drab, lifeless, and tired. Why work? Why get out of bed? Why do anything? Why commit suicide? Nothing seems to matter. I just pulled out key sentences from the opening chapter of this book on what depression really is. Those are testimonies of people that have battled this. This is not just pain. What we're dealing with today is not an affliction. It's the dark night of the soul. And you could flesh it out in many of these phrases, testimonies that we've heard, and perhaps many other ways. of describing it as well. Guys, you know, as well as I do, depression is very, very pervasive all around us in our society. Look at the introduction here on page 33 of your outline, an estimated one in 10 adults report discussion according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Here's what they say. Now, this is a secular definition, but listen. Depression is a mental illness that can be costly and debilitating to sufferers. Depression can adversely affect the course and outcome of common chronic conditions such as arthritis, asthma, cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity. Depression can also result in increased work absenteeism, short-term disability, and decreased productivity. Well, that's not new to you. You get that. I just appreciate the honesty of Andy Thompson, psychiatrist at U of Virginia. He said, depression is everywhere. And what's striking to me is not so much how pervasive depression is. We get that. but the ages get younger and younger and younger. Third grade, second grade, on medication for depression. Defining depression, bottom of the page, a debilitating mood, a feeling, or an attitude of hopelessness, which becomes a person's reason for not handling the most important issues of life. Now, I have number two and three in your outline. I don't want to read all of this. I don't think that would be the best use of our time. You see number two, the causes of depression in the secular understanding. What would the medical world say? What would the psychiatric world say about depression? What is the cause of depression? Really that many of them would say it's result of the chemical imbalance in the brain and maybe a combination of a number of factors biological social psychological so on Well, what's the treatment? But what does the world have to offer if you go to your psychologist or you go? Sit down in an office and you talk about the way that some of these people describe themselves Number one medication Number two, psychotherapy, or number three, ECT. You know, these are treatments dealing with the real problem of suffering. But you know, one of the things you're gonna find, the more that you read and study on depression in the secular world, is it's often termed or labeled a disease. It really kind of becomes your identity. Who are you? My name is Jeff. I'm depressed. You no longer are you, well, I'm a Christian. I'm a child of God. I'm in Christ. I'm a new creation. It really kind of becomes your identity. This is my label. This is what the doctor gave to me. I'm depressed. That's who I am. Bottom of page 34, biblical counselor Jim Neuheiser said, if you call depression a disease, that is depressing because it offers no hope. Guys, I want to take us really just quickly skim over the secular understanding. Without denying the problem, without denying the hardship, without denying the pain, I want to look at number four with you. Let's understand the real root of depression biblically. Now, guys, see how what I'm going to say here is so interconnected with what Mike talked about with the sufficient word and what we built on after that with the makeup of man, anthropology. Remember, the secular world doesn't understand. They don't have the Spirit of God living in them. They don't understand a biblical anthropology of man. They just don't get it. They don't have a category for that. But here is, I think it's so vital for us to get the real root of depression biblically. Follow with me as I read from the top of the page here. Biblically, depression always involves a feeling or an attitude of hopelessness. And it will manifest itself, listen carefully, in a low view of God in that moment. Now, if you battle with depression, or if there's a brother in the church who battles with depression, or if you're coming across the path of another believer who battles depression. Here are three diagnostic questions that I remember coming across, and I think this is just so helpful in our understanding of the topic. Number one, could God have changed the circumstances? Could he have? Could he have had a different plan, a different decree? Well, sure, he could have. Did he? No. Number three, is God good? To which we have to say, yes, that's all over the word of God. Give thanks to the Lord for he is good. It's love endures forever. We must constantly repeat this in our counseling of our own hearts and with other people. That's why theology is absolutely the foundation bedrock of our biblical counseling. If we have a bad theology, our counseling is gonna be bad. Depression, next, often arises. because of feeling-oriented responses rather than commandment-oriented ways of living. Are you tracking there? It's when we allow our feelings, our emotions, to dictate how we think, how we respond, how we react, rather than following God's word. And here's maybe a real simple, kind of a classic illustration. I put it down here. I feel that I should have gotten this. I should have married that woman. I should have gotten that job. I should have gotten that promotion, whatever, whatever it could be. I feel like I should have. And when that desire, that expectation doesn't happen, Now I feel worthless. Now I feel like a nothing. Now I feel, and those thoughts and beginnings, feelings begin to dictate how you think, how you live, how you conduct yourself. So next paragraph, guys, I bracketed this in my notes. This is key. Circumstances are not the issue. Now, now, Are there really, really tough circumstances? You bet. Of course. You know, Christians, we don't want to deny this. We don't want to live in some cloud nine world where we're not in reality kind of denying that they're suffering. Of course not. But the circumstances aren't the issue in dealing with depression. The issue is always how we respond to the circumstances. So, consistently responding sinfully to circumstances is what feeds the feelings of depression, or hopelessness, or aimlessness. The goal for a Christian, and we've said it before in 2 Corinthians 5-9, our ambition is to be pleasing to Christ. that I might not feel like doing it. I'm at a why decision. I'm going down the road and I'm at a why. Am I going to choose to follow God or am I going to choose to follow my feelings? And we have those decisions every day, whether we realize it or not. We always come to that why decision. Am I going to follow God or follow my feelings? We must learn to talk to ourselves instead of listening to ourselves. Because our feelings often lie. I want to prove this to you biblically. Take your Bible and go to Psalm 42. If a believer comes to me and tells me they battle depression, here's my first go-to scripture. Psalm 42 and 43. Now I know you know it because Psalm 42 begins as the deer pants for the water. So my soul longs for you, you know, the song and the song, but look at verse three. My tears have been my food day and night. Just ponder enter into his suffering with him. He's crying, weeping day and night. Verse three ends while they are saying to me all day long, where is your God? Now you've got people mocking you and they're mocking your God and your Christianity. Verse four, these things I remember when I pour out my soul within you. Verse four, I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with the voice of joy and thanks. Oh, I remember the good old days. Now, verse five, fellas, this is the key verse for all Christians battling this. Verse five, why are you in despair? Oh, my soul. Who's he talking to? Himself. He's counseling his own heart. Does that take away the problem? No. Does it just make everything all better? No. Why are you in despair, O my soul? Why are you disturbed within me?" And then he's gonna command his soul, hope in God. For I shall again praise him for the help of his presence. Verse six, oh my God, my soul is in despair within me. Here he's back into it again. He's back in. Verse 7, deep calls to deep at the sound of your waterfalls. All your breakers and your waves have rolled over me. God, your ocean waves are crashing upon me. He is back in the suffering again. Verse 10 is a shattering of my bones. My adversaries revile me and they say all day long, where is your God? Okay, when you fall back into that, what do you do? Verse 11, why are you in despair? It's the same thing again. Hope in God. Now, do you see what he's doing there, guys? I love Psalm, and Psalm 43 is the exact same thing. Verses one to four is suffering. Verse five, hope in God. He's going to talk to his own soul. Because we are so good at listening to ourselves. Man, I don't feel like it. I feel worthless. I feel this. No, we need to talk. We need to preach truth to ourselves. Listen to what Lloyd-Jones says. Actually, no, let's not do that. The quote down here by Lloyd-Jones really builds on that. Really, much of the unhappiness in our lives is due to the fact that we listen and not preach to ourselves. But you can read that quote more on your own. Turn with me guys to the next page, to the next page. So we, the problem is not the situation. We are acknowledging that there are very, very difficult times. The issue for the believers, how am I responding? How am I gonna react? How am I going to respond to what God brings into my life? Okay, number five, page 36. Biblical examples of those who are depressed. And biblical terms include downcast, despair, countenance, falling, I'm disturbed, I'm near death, darkness, waves of death, blackness. Really, Psalm 88 brings nearly all these out. Psalm 88 is like the psalm for the depressed man. But, but Cain was depressed. Why are, why is your face downcast? God said to Cain. Remember Elijah, first Kings 19, when, when the wicked Jezebel, you know, said, I'm going to kill you. And Elijah, you know, went to the top of the mountain and, and, and yeah, fell into the deep, deep state of despair. David, the psalmist, Jeremiah, the book of lamentations is a, is a manual of a depressed man. Paul, 2 Corinthians 1, 2 Corinthians 7 as well. Okay, but can Christians deal with this? I mean, this is a really bad issue. You heard the statements at the beginning of our time together. Blackness, despair, meaningless, worthless, death, on and on we go. Can a Christian really battle with this? And the answer is yes. And I give you reasons why there. Struggle with indwelling sin. We've not put off the old habits and put on the new. Temptations. We see through a mirror dimly. We know only in part. We have the down payment. We have the Holy Spirit, but we're not fully glorified yet. We struggle with the world and the flesh and the devil. David Brainerd down there at the bottom missionary. He died in Jonathan Edwards' home. David Brainerd was a man who battled depression. Spurgeon. Luther. Calvin. On and on we could go with godly saints. John Bunyan. We could go on with many more hymn writers, pastors, theologians. Page 37. I want you to take your Bible and I want you to go with me to a place that I think is so important for us as men to understand. Hebrews 2, when we're going through times of struggle. The top of page 37 of your notes just gives you three references, and I want to go there real quick. But Hebrews 2.17, therefore, he, referring to Jesus, had to be made like his brethren in all things." Now, that last phrase is key when you're dealing with a depressed person because sometimes depressed people say, nobody can relate. I'm alone in this. No, the Bible says, he was made like us in all things. Actually, if we're going to be really technical, Jesus knew suffering in a far greater degree than anybody here could ever know. 17 continues so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest and things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since he himself was tempted in that which he has suffered, he is able to come to the aid. He comes to your help when you are tempted. Turn back to the Old Testament after Jeremiah, you got the book of Lamentations. Now I want you to go here with me because I want to show you something. Lamentations is a lament, a five chapter lament. And here's what happened. The temple has been burned. People have been slaughtered. The Jews have been exiled. Jeremiah left behind and he's weeping saying, God, what is going on here? this might be one of the lengthiest descriptions of a depressed man that we have in scripture. Chapter one, focusing on the people. Chapter two, God's anger. Chapter four, God's anger. Chapter five, mourning and loss and the people that are suffering. But right in the middle, chapter three, verse 19, remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness. Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me. This I recall to mind, therefore I have hope. That is key. Where does hope come from for the person who's going through the dark night? It's recalling things to mind. What is it? Verse 22, the Lord's loving kindnesses. This is a Hebrew word that refers to the covenant love, but it's in the plural form. God's overflowing, they keep coming loving kindnesses. They never cease. His compassion has never failed. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. You know that hymn. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I have hope in him. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the person who seeks him. You see, Jeremiah is not writing this on a perfect day. He's writing this as a man who is going through that dark night of the soul. Where do you have hope? It's when you recall the character of God to mind, and you fortify yourself upon this rock of the character of God, and you say, I will live by faith. I will endure, I will persevere, and I will trust God. Romans 8, I think is another good one. Maybe we could just quote it together. What will separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus? Shall tribulation and persecution and famine and nakedness and peril and sword, knowing all these things we are overwhelmingly conquerors, right? And he goes on to say that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. What I find from that first book that I told you about on your outline here from Bob Somerville, is for the Christian, one of the keys to unlock the treasure chest in your depression, to finding hope each day, is remembering that nothing can separate you from the love of God. Nothing. Whatever trial, whatever hardship, whatever pain, whatever affliction, whatever feelings may come, nothing, nothing can separate you from the love of God. Now, number seven, at the bottom of that page, now in the box there on page 37, here's a testimony of a depressed young lady. I found it to be very encouraging how she, as a believer, coped through the difficult times of her depression. But verse 37, now guys, I want you to follow this quote with me. The seventh heading down here is glorifying God through the dark times. Notice that word through. We don't just tell people about what they can do. We don't just, as a Christian counselor say, here's a pill. Here's a self-help group. Here's a therapy session. Here's ECT, whatever. No. We point you to a person in whom you can trust. Hope is found in the person, Jesus Christ, not in a pill or a prescription and not just in knowing facts or changing your circumstances. So, Psalm 39, David says, and Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you. Christians don't deny the reality of great hardship and pain, nor do we deny the physical components of pain. So how can we learn from the examples of God's people? How can we learn from the Bible so that we deal with the dark night of the soul in a God-honoring way? Where is help and where is hope found? Now in your outline, I give you three examples. One is in the Psalms. One is Acts 27, the shipwreck. Okay, maybe Paul's not in a long state of depression, but the text says this, when they had lost all hope of being saved. Okay, that's the depression attitude right there. What did Paul do? So that's another example. And then on the next page, the example of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Let's begin. by taking our Bibles and turning to Psalm 102. Psalm 102. I wanna show you, here's one example, and guys, I don't think I'm exaggerating if there are dozens of Psalms like this that follow the same pattern. Psalm 102 is a remarkable 28-verse Psalm. Now, before verse one, you have a little inscription. My understanding and my interpretation is that these are inspired. These are part of the text. It's a praise of the afflicted one. Well, the Hebrew word for affliction means squeezing, like you take a water bottle and you just squeeze it and everything comes out. Here's a guy who just feels squeezed. Everything in him is being squeezed out. when he is faint and pouring out his complaint before the Lord. Okay, verse one. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry for help come to you. Don't hide your face from me in the day of my distress. Incline your ear to me, In the day when I call, answer me quickly, for my days have been consumed in smoke and my bones have been scorched like a hearth. My heart has been smitten like grass and has withered away. Indeed, I forget to eat my bread. We can pause. He's got physical pain. We're not neglecting physical here. He's got physical pain. Even his diet is being affected. You see that there? I'm not even eating food. Spiritually, he feels like God is absent. But look at verse five, because of the loudness of my groaning, my bones are clinging to my flesh, more physiological pain. I resemble a pelican of the wilderness. I become like an owl of the waste places. I feel like an isolated bird in the desert. Who can relate to me? Verse seven, I lie awake. Well, now he's not sleeping. I mean, if you sat down in a psychiatrist's office today and you said, I'm in despair. I feel like I'm in the desert, like a bird. I'm not eating. I'm sleeping really bad. You're a classic case of depression. You're a classic case of depression. Verse 7, I've become like a lonely bird on a housetop. My enemies are approaching me all day long. They deride me. They've used my name as a curse. Verse 9, I've eaten ashes like bread and mingled my drink with weeping. Because of your indignation and your wrath, you've lifted me up and cast me away. God, I feel like you're angry with me. Verse 11, my days are like a lengthened shadow. I feel like I'm a shadow. and I wither away like grass." Well, that's a guy in despair. Now, if the psalm ended there, that would be pretty hopeless. There's no resolution. There's no outcome. Now, guys, the key, without a shadow of a doubt, is the very next phrase in verse 12. What are the words in your Bible? The first words, but you, Oh Lord, that's the key for a Christian going through these times is taking the focus off of me, myself, I, my life, my circumstances, my pain, my feelings, my emotions, but you, but you, Oh, Lord, abide forever." Literally, the Hebrew says, you sit enthroned forever. The very first thing that gives comfort to the depressed worshiper here is that God is sovereign and He's seating on the throne. Could God have prevented it? Could've. Did He? No. Is He good? Yes. and your name to all generations. Verse 12, verse 13, you will arise and have compassion on Zion. It is time to be gracious to her for the appointed time has come. Surely your servants find pleasure in her stones and feel pity for her dust. So the nations will fear the name of the Lord and all the kings of the earth. Your glory for the Lord has built up Zion. He has appeared in his glory. What's he doing? He's remembering that God is great. God is revealing himself in Zion to the worshipers. I think we could honestly say the afflicted psalmist right here doesn't feel like worshiping. He doesn't feel like it. His emotions are a wreck right here. He can't sleep, he can't eat, he's physically in pain, he's emotionally in turmoil, spiritually he feels like God has abandoned him. But look at this, verse 18. This will be written for the generation to come that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord. He looked down from his holy height from heaven. The Lord gazed upon the earth to hear the groaning of the prisoner to set free those who were doomed to death so that men may tell of the name of the Lord and Zion and his praise in Jerusalem when the peoples are gathered together and the kingdoms to serve the Lord. What's he doing? He's hoping in God. He's remembering God. You are worthy of worship, and the nations do gather to worship you. Oh yeah, it's not about me. Remember earlier how I mentioned that oftentimes in depression, that that pattern can lead to kind of a self-focus, kind of a disposition? Well here, the psalmist is taking the focus off of self and putting it onto God. Well, verse 23, what if you don't get answers? What if things don't change? What if life just continues to be hard and tough? Verse 23, he has weakened my strength in the way he has shortened my days. God, I feel like my life is quickly passing here. Verse 24, I say, Oh God, do not take me away in the midst of my days. Your years are throughout all generations of old. You founded the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands. Even they will perish, but you endure and all of them will wear out like a garment, like clothing. You will change them, but they will be changed. You are the same. Your years will not come to an end. Do you see what he's doing? It's like lamentations. He's remembering who God is. Are we denying depression, the dark night of the soul, and saying Christians would never have this kind of hardship? Of course we wouldn't say that. But what we say is, as a Christian is going through these hard times, our way of thinking needs to be constantly, we might even say daily, maybe even hourly, needs to be checked, transformed, brought back to the Word, brought back to God, brought back to the character of God, and the importance of living by faith. Living by faith. Maybe one more. Just look in your outline. I think I wrote it here. It might save a little time, and then we can draw this to a close. Page 39. Number three, they're the example of Jesus. Now, you all know the example when he's in Gethsemane. The situation, he's there. He's going to be betrayed by Judas in a matter of hours. John 12, 27, Jesus said, now my soul has become troubled. John's going to use the strongest Greek word for being troubled. Luke 22, we know it's bad. An angel had to strengthen Jesus. He was in agony. He was praying fervently. His soul became like drops of blood. I've never been in that kind of agony. Have you? No. Okay, Matthew 26. So Jesus began to be grieved and distressed. What does he say? My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. Now, what does he do at this point of soul grief to the point of death? at a level that you and I will never know. He's gonna bear the full wrath of God. And he knows he's gonna drink the cup. What does he do? He falls down before God. He cries out to God. I'm just quoting here on our notes what Matthew says. He cries out to God. He submitted to God, not my will, but yours be done. He was aware of the temptation, right? The disciples pray that you might not fall into temptation. He kept continuing to pray. Three different times for an hour he prayed. Sometimes that's the help for the depressed soul. It's just going back to God in prayer for an hour. And then you go back and have a hard time. Then you go back to God. And then you fall back into that black hole. And then you go back to God again. and he trusted God's plan. Not my will, but yours be done. What a great example. He doesn't minimize suffering. He doesn't just ignore it and shove it aside and say Christians would never deal with that. No, the captain of our salvation really models for us how to deal with deep, dark, painful times in life. What I tried to do on the bottom of page 39 is I tried to get as practical as I possibly could. Practical process for counseling yourself or maybe somebody else, a Christian who's battling depression from asking heart searching questions. And then on the next page, I give you a handful of other, just getting a physical, a medical exam. What is going on physically? A God-centered view of life, understanding the cycle of depression. What does it teach you about your own heart? On and on we could go with that. On page 41, I have a one-page handout that I give to those battling depression in biblical counseling. This is really kind of a one-page summary of everything I've talked about. Just kind of a helpful 15-point summary from a homework manual. on biblical counseling. But guys, what do we say to suffering? But what do we say to the person who says, you know what, I really feel depressed? Well, we don't shove them aside and say, Christians wouldn't battle with that. Why would you do that? Of course not. We enter into it with them. And we want to probe at the heart. And that's what pages 39 and 40 are going to bring out. What are you wanting? What are you longing for? What do you desire? And what did you not get? Where do these feelings come from? How are you responding? How are you reacting? Where is God in your picture? And then we go to the word. Again, we don't claim to have a magic pill that's gonna solve a solution. And quite honestly, as biblical counselors, we're not happy with just kind of putting a Band-Aid on a symptom. We wanna get at the heart so that our heart is constantly like a rubber band going back to the Lord and back to his word and back to the character of God. Again, and again, and again. Any questions? Any questions at all on an ever so real and prevalent topic like depression? Is that helpful? To go through that? Those books are good as well, just to give you more reading, more understanding, and a lot of kind of practical scenarios of Christian people that have battled with it to find help and encouragement. Anything, yeah. So your former teacher, Bob Somerville, did he experience the depression like as he was already a teacher for years, or was it something that he had prior to that? He battled with it for a long time, but he had been teaching for decades as a biblical counselor. He'd been helping people with battling depression, but little did he realize that he had gotten to a point that he was that guy. And of course, the Lord has used it in his life in a wonderful way, and he's written a book, and it's a wonderful, wonderful help. But yeah, so even people that know truth. can battle with this. Yeah. Would you say that the root starting I guess the leading cause for full-blown depression is just a little step at a time of relying on I feel I feel I didn't get that I feel but it's kind of like an accumulation of that over time. Sure. And with that with that it's a great point. Yeah, I feel I feel I feel and then with that is that perspective off of God, and the emphasis is on the feelings. So it's really a habit built over time. It can be, sure. And it's a habit built over time of not looking to the Lord and his word, but looking to self and, quite honestly, following self's feelings. Rather than speaking truth, they're listening and following what they feel. Just a few observations on this last page, quarter one. If I were going to distill what I see here, I remember in college, I struggled with mood swings and depression, and I was determined I was hypoglycemic, so I needed to change my eating habits, and that made a big difference. I think there's as many reasons for depression as there are people. I don't think there's one single genesis for this thing. But as I look at this, I see the common themes are to depend on the sufficiency and authority To look to the character of God, God is immutably, eternally, infinitely good and wise and all-powerful. Could he have changed it? Sure. Did he? No. Is he good? Yeah, he's always good. Is he wise? Yes. Does he always do things for his glory and for our good? Yes. then some of these things in here, sometimes we medicate our depression by just going out and doing things. That can be a quick fix, but that's not the ultimate answer. There is a replacement here about using gifts and all this, and that's true. We need to shift the focus from ourselves to others. But simply going out and doing things without addressing the heart is not really a long-term way to solve it. It can provide temporary relief. And then looking at our theology, our doctrine of God, those are the things that I determine. But I think there's as many reasons people get depressed as there are people. But the circumstances can be different. But there can't be a physiological origin. Sure. I think that's key when you brought up the fact, okay, check and see if there's a medical issue. Because if there's a physical issue, like what you were talking about, there was a physical issue. Deal with that. Yeah. Yep. That's right. It was fairly straightforward to change by eating. Absolutely. Guys, may the Lord help. And may he give clarity and wisdom and perseverance. And that proven character and proven character hope. And hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts, right? Well, Father, thank you for these men. Thank you for the hope in your word. Thank you for the blessing of the sufficiency of your word. We pray that we would be equipped not only to counsel our own hearts, but even one another as well with your help and by your grace. In Jesus name, amen.