Today, with God's blessing, I hope to begin a series of sermons on spiritual depression. I got the title from a book by Martin Lloyd-Jones, first published in 1965. It is still in print and well worth reading. And like most doctors who write on depression, Lloyd-Jones was a pastor who knew there was more to it than brain chemistry. And like most pastors who write on it, he was the medical doctor who knew there is more to it than repentance. You enjoy reading? Read the book straight through. You're not much of a reader? Find a chapter that applies to you and you'll be glad you did. Depression, like all human problems, is only solved by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Most of the time, His grace comes to us through people. Lloyd-Jones' books have helped tens of thousands of people in the last 40 years. My sermons won't do that, of course, but I pray they'll help you. Help you to do what the first Christians did, and that is walk in the fear of God and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. Talking about depression is a waste of time until we know what it is we're talking about. What is depression? Informally, depression is a deep sorrow that does not go away. It is not the blue moods we all get into now and then. It is not the short but intense grief we feel when we lose a loved one. It is a serious sadness we can't get rid of. Oh, we might have a good day now and then, but it's only a good day. and only now and then. By depression I mean a deep sorrow and a deep sorrow that doesn't go away. How deep it is and how long it lasts will differ from person to person, but you get the idea. The American Psychiatric Association says you're depressed if you experience five or more of the following symptoms over a two-week period. I feel somewhat nervous reading the nine Marks here, because when I read them myself, I said eight are true of me. I read them to my wife. She said, oh, about one or two are true of you. So it's like reading medical books. You always feel sick after you read them. But here goes. Depressed mood most of the day. Diminished interest or pleasure in most or all things. Sudden weight loss or weight gain. Sleeping too much or too little. Restlessness, tiredness, feelings of worthlessness or false guilt, diminished ability to concentrate, a desire to die. Most psychiatrists are not believers in Christ and do not work out of a Christian worldview. But I think they're on to something here. If they don't know what the answer to the problem is, it seems to me they've diagnosed the problem pretty well. They recognize the symptoms at any rate. Richard Baxter was the greatest Puritan pastor, and more than 300 years ago, he preached a long sermon titled, The Cure of Melancholy and Overmuch Sorrow. What are melancholy and overmuch sorrow? He calls them, quote, a distemper that hurts or overwhelms nature itself and destroys bodily health or understanding. It overthrows sober reason. It disables a man to govern his thoughts. It hinders hope. It makes all sufferings more heavy. What Baxter called melancholy and over much sorrow, we call depression. A sorrow that hangs on and eats away at the body and the mind and may end in death. This is what depression is by whatever name. it goes. My sermons, however, are not on depression, but on spiritual depression. What's this? Well, spiritual depression is a depression that does not have an organic cause. Some depressions are purely physical. They are ailments of the body, like a broken arm, only far worse. The organic causes include Alzheimer's disease, dementia, hyperthyroidism, brain damage, strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, and the disease we all have, aging. Some of you remember that dear brother, Bill Meyer, who's now with the Lord. Well, we met him when he was well into his 70s and after he'd had a stroke and a massive heart attack. Bill was the most emotional man I ever knew. sometimes bursting into tears for no reason at all. One night I was visiting him and we were talking about movies or sports or some such thing, and he broke down and he cried like a baby. When Bill calmed down, he said something to me that I'll never forget. He said, this is not me. Bill was a rocket scientist, literally. He designed rockets that went into space. Bill was a rocket scientist with a cool analytical mind until he got old and sick. Then he was somebody else. Physical depression does not get better through prayer, Bible reading, or repentance. It requires medical treatment. A diabetic doesn't need to confess his sins. He needs to take his insulin. Don't be more spiritual than God. He once told a sick man to take a little wine for your stomach's sake and your oft infirmities. He didn't say, Timothy, pray more. He said, Timothy, take your medicine. Now this brings up an important question and one that's also controversial. And that is the whole issue of antidepressants. Should you take antidepressants? Is it wrong for a Christian to take Prozac, for example? Some Christians say you ought to take them. Other Christians say you ought never to take them. I say it all depends. What does it depend on? Well, it depends on what's wrong with you. Drugs can help the body, which includes the brain. They cannot cure the soul. If a blood test or an x-ray or a CAT scan says there's something wrong with your brain or something wrong with your thyroid, for example, And if medication can help your brain or thyroid, you're free to take it. But there's the rub. I must be terribly naive, but I was shocked to learn that most antidepressants are prescribed without any hard science. Maybe everyone else knows that. I didn't know it. A patient comes in depressed. The doctor runs a battery of tests. They all come out negative. And the doctor puts him on antidepressants. The tests may have missed something, of course, or the doctor and patient may have missed something. The doctor and the patient may have ignored the spiritual causes of depression. I'm no doctor, but I know one thing for sure. No pill takes away the sin of the world. And no pill will make you happy or bring you into fellowship with God or take away the guilt feelings we all feel because we are guilty. If you need medicine, take it, but only if you need it. Don't use medicine to mask spiritual problems. There is no such thing as sanctification by chemistry. If you don't know if your problem is physical or spiritual, seek wisdom from God. And wisdom from God comes mostly through people. Consult your physician. Read up on depression. Talk to your Christian friends. Study the Bible. Pray for wisdom. And the love of God be with you. And so, this is what we're talking about today and for the next few weeks. Spiritual depression. Not the kind of depression you feel because you have Alzheimer's disease. But the kind you feel because you're living with guilt. You're living with regrets. You're stubbornly resisting God. You're not believing in Christ. You're not trusting your Savior. You're not meditating on the Word. Things like these. Now, depression is a common problem. Surveys say 15 to 30 million Americans are depressed. What's true of our countrymen in general is also true of our brethren. Disciples of Christ are as prone to depression as anybody else. And this really shouldn't surprise you. There's no such thing as Christian diseases, Christian weaknesses, Christian temptations, or Christian sins. Your body is no stronger than your Muslim neighbor's body. My mind is no tougher than the mind of my atheist friend. We're tempted by the same sins that non-Christians are, and we commit the same ones too, though unlike them, We repent of our sins and receive forgiveness. The old rhyme has it, in Adam's fall, we send all, both the world and the church. It'd be really nice to say here that the only kind of Christian who is ever depressed is a bad Christian. The reason you're depressed is because you're sinning. It'd be very easy to say that. The reason you're depressed is because you may be a Christian, but you're a bad Christian. This would be very easy to say, but it would not be true. Two of my heroes in church history were severely prone to depression, Martin Luther and Charles Spurgeon. They were not weak, self-centered men with too much time on their hands. They served Christ with a commitment and a zeal seldom seen in the world. Charles Spurgeon spoke of fainting things. That's what would come over him, especially after preaching. He'd become very depressed and he wrote a whole chapter in his book on preachers and preaching. He wrote a whole chapter to young men, other preachers who were prone to the same thing he was. And Dr. Luther, oh boy, very few people ever struggled with the demons of depression more. And so these are two outstanding men of God who were often depressed. And then we can go to the Puritans. They were famously tough in body and soul. In England, the Puritans fought and won a civil war. In America, of course, they hacked out a civilization right out of the wilderness. These were tough men. They were not the kind of people prone to sit around and gaze at their navels and say how sorry they are for themselves. But if you read Puritan sermons, you'll see they're very often about spiritual depression. Thomas Bridge published a book of sermons called A Lifting Up for the Downcast. Why? Because he knew a lot of Christians were downcast and needed to be lifted up. Thomas Watson preached on the mute Christian under the smarting rod. Smarting rod, that's an old-fashioned word. It means the Christian being spanked by God. That's what it means. Joseph Carroll outdid them all, printing 12 fat volumes on the Book of Job, and most of the sermons are about depression. I personally know four pastors who fell into serious depression. One of them told me he would sit at his desk for hours staring at the wall. He would go several days without eating. He would cry for no reason. These were his symptoms. Another man was so depressed that he had to take a year off preaching and pastoral duties. A third man quit the ministry altogether and a fourth man committed suicide. Depression is common in the world and in the church. Depression, though, is not only common, It's serious. We sometimes think depressed people are just being babies, and some of them are. Most of them, however, are not. Depression hurts. In his book, Blame It on the Brain, Ed Welch says, When you listen to people describe their depression, you will hear two extremes. People will report that the pain is so intense that they want to die. Others will describe an emotional numbness in which they are already dead. Sometimes you will hear one person describe living with both extremes simultaneously. Some people feel they're going to die. Other people feel they are dead. And some people feel that they're dying and are dead at the same time. Now, again, it'd be easy to say we live in a therapeutic age and people think too much about their feelings and so forth. But you know what they say really matches up to what the Bible says. We read four psalms this morning. Psalm 6, 13, 42, and 130. Let's go back through those psalms. I'll just quote a verse or part of a verse from each one. First we have Psalm 6. David says, I am weary with my groaning. All night I make my bed swim. I drench my couch with tears. There's a man lying in a lake of tears. every night. And then we come to Psalm 13, the psalm that's brought so much understanding and help to me and other Christians. How long, O Lord, will you forget me? Forever? Here's a man who thought that God had forgotten him. A man who used to have close fellowship with the Lord and His people, and now he wonders if God even remembers him. And then Psalm 42, O God, my soul is cast down within me. And then Psalm 130, out of the depths have I cried to you, O Lord. These people sound like they're dying, or they're dead, or they're both. And I'll add one more psalm. This is Psalm 22, made famous by another man. More blood-curdling words are hard to find. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Depression is a serious matter. It hurts. And not only the one who's in it. Depression isolates you and keeps you from loving others in practical ways. And it sometimes isolates you from God and keeps you from trusting and loving Him. Is depression sinful? Is it always wrong to be depressed? Should we look at a depressed person and say, well, did his parents sin or he sinned because he's depressed? How should we look at depressed people? Or how should we look at depression, really, is what I'm asking. Is depression sinful? Well, it can be. It can be used as a kind of blackmail to make people do what you want them to do. When I was a boy, I had a neighbor who was this way. Every time she didn't get what she wanted, she had a spell. That's what we called it in those days. She had a spell. Now we call it depression. Miraculously, whenever her husband and kids gave her what she wanted, her spell went away. It can be nothing but blackmail. It can also be a way of getting out of doing what you don't want to do. Again, it's like the little boy who always gets a sore throat the day the term paper is due. It's nothing but an excuse, a way of getting out of things. But let me stop here to issue a warning. Faking depression is both wrong and dangerous. It's wrong because it's lying. Not doing what you're supposed to do because, quote, you're depressed is lying. Maybe you should say, I don't want to do what I don't want because I'm scared. I'm not going to do what I'm supposed to do because I don't want to, I'm sinful, I'm stubborn. Don't say depressed. It's dangerous because it often leads to the real thing. Lie in bed long enough faking depression, and you'll become depressed. On a higher level, we have the promise of God. Maybe I should say, the threat of God. Psalm 18, 26. With the pure, you will show yourself pure. And with the devious, you will show yourself shrewd. There once was a people who said, give us a king. And God gave them a king. The very king they wanted, they got, and then they wished they hadn't. If depression is sinful sometimes, often it is not sinful. You're not responsible for a damaged thyroid, and you shouldn't feel guilty about it and the feelings it produces. It's a sickness, not a sin. But how about spiritual depression? Is it always sinful? Well, no, it isn't. The Lord may take us into darkness and leave us there for a long time, David was the apple of God's eye, the man after God's own heart. But in Psalm 23, he said, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. What does this describe? Depression. Sorrow of some kind. And then there's Job, who's the holiest man in the world, and for some time, the unhappiest. If you go to Job chapter 7, you'll find several excerpts Chapter 7 is Job himself speaking. Earlier in the book he cursed the day of his birth, had wished there had been no celebration when the news broke a man-child was born into the world. He wished that he had been aborted instead of born. He was in terrible sorrow. Then his friends come in to comfort him but only torture him. And then in chapter 7, Job goes even farther. He says, my days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle and are spent without hope. When I say my bed will comfort me, you scare me with dreams. Listen to the poor man. He's in total despair when he's awake. He finally falls asleep and he has nightmares. He adds, I loathe life and would not live forever. Life is the gift of God and it ought to be hung on to as long as possible. Life is, oh God Himself is alive and life is a very precious thing He gives us. But Job was in such pain and agony of body and soul that he said, I've come to loathe what I used to love. And while I used to dream of living forever, now a long life is a nightmare to me. And then he says, a little bit later in the chapter, so that my soul chooses strangling in death. My hope in life is that somebody would come along and strangle me. And Job is the holiest man in the world. Are we going to be one of Job's friends and say, see, all depression is sinful? Well, three men said that. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. They said just that. And at the end of the story, Job had to offer sacrifices for them. Guilt sacrifices. Guilt offerings. To remove the wrath of God on his friends. While Job himself was vindicated. As being what he looked like from the beginning. A real man of God. So not all depression is sinful. Thank God it isn't. You know? even though all depression is not sinful, Satan has a way of putting depression into his service. The scripture that Richard Baxter preached from in that long sermon I referred to a few minutes ago was 2 Corinthians 2.11. In this passage, Paul... Well, let me go back one step and say what the problem was. There was a man in Corinth who was involved in a very great sin. And for that sin he was excommunicated, put out of the church. But the man had repented and wanted readmission to the church. The church itself wasn't sure they should bring him back. Maybe he was pretending to repent. Or maybe he'd committed the unpardonable sin. Or maybe the devil was leading him back into the church so he could further corrupt the people. We don't know that. But we know the big idea. A man had sinned, he'd been put out, came back, In repentance, he wanted back into the church, and Paul says to welcome that man back into the church, lest Satan should take advantage of it, for we are not ignorant of his devices. He said, if you don't let that man back in, he's likely to be swallowed up with too much sorrow, and if that happens to him, you're going to give Satan the advantage. And Paul says, because we're not ignorant of his devices, which means his plots, his way of doing things. One grand opening for the devil is depression. Again, this thing itself is not sinful in many cases, but it always opens a door to the devil. When the devil sees a depressed Christian, he sees fertile ground for planting every kind of mischief. He'll say to that person things like, God does not love you. Your life is worthless. Don't bother reading the Bible. Prayer never reaches heaven. Whatever you do, don't go to church. Whatever you do, don't serve others. Whatever you do, don't love your family. Withdraw further and further and further into yourself. And especially, don't ever hope to get better. This is life imprisonment. You're going to be like this forever, and then you're going to die, and things are going to get worse. Here I have to cite the example of a man I love so dearly from church history, William Cooper. C-O-W-P-E-R. Cooper. It looks like Cowper to us, but it's Cooper. William Cooper was one of England's most celebrated poets. But if you read his life, you'll see that He suffered from depression off and on his whole life. He made good friends with John Newton, the writer of Amazing Grace, and that pastor I so admire. And Newton helped him for a long time, but then his depression came back, and he was sure, absolutely sure, that God had predestined him to hell. He had no hope at all. It just makes you cry to read the life of such a person. And I believe in Cooper's case, looking at his whole family history that his depression was an organic type. That's what I think, at least. And yet this organic depression was used by the devil to make him believe something as foolish and patently untrue as he had been predestined to hell. When he wasn't depressed, he didn't feel this way. But when he was depressed, he did it. And when you're not depressed, you don't feel your life is worthless. When you're not depressed, you don't think God doesn't love you. You don't think going to church, reading the Bible, praying are worthless things to do. You don't think you'll find happiness inside of yourself, withdrawing. When you're not depressed, you don't believe any of these things. But when you are depressed, you do. You see, the devil is a liar from the beginning. And He lies to us all the time. And when we're depressed, we often believe His lies and acting upon His lies. And we begin opening ourselves up to all kinds of sins. Depression is not sinful, but it's a breeding ground for sin. If the Lord leads you into dark valleys, go with Him and be content to stay with Him as long as He wants you to. But if He has a way out for you, by all means take the way and get out immediately, not sooner. But of course, that's the question, isn't it? That really brings us to the big question. How do you get out of your depression? How do you get out of your depression? What do you do when you're spiritually depressed? When you think God doesn't love you? When you think death is better than life? What do you do? How do you get out of it? Well, this series, yeah, this series is going to be largely about how do you get out of it. But I can only say one thing today. It comes from one of the Psalms that we read, Psalm 42, verse 11. Listen carefully to what Psalm 42, 11 says. It says, Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my God and my countenance. You say, oh yeah, there's the key, hope, truth. That's not my point I'm making now. Question, who's talking here? Psalm 42, 11 is a man talking to somebody. Who's he talking to? He's talking to himself. He's having a conversation with his soul. Now, this is interesting because in times of depression, people tend to listen to themselves. They listen, God doesn't love me. They listen, life is worthless. They listen, nobody loves me. They listen to all of these things. It's amazing how talkative some people are to everyone but themselves. But here's a good example to be talkative to yourself. Stop listening to yourself and start talking to yourself. This is what David is doing in the psalm. He's talking to himself. He's calling himself on it. He says, why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you disquieted within me? The soul doesn't have anything to say. And then he tells the soul what to do. He says, hope in God. And then he tells us all what he's going to do in the future. He's going to praise Him one day. Because God is the help of my countenance and God is my God. Stop listening to yourself. Stop listening to those little voices in your head which you either really or don't really hear, but you know what I mean. Stop listening to yourself and start talking to yourself. And let me do one of that. Don't just start talking to yourself. Start preaching to yourself. Not everyone is called to be a public preacher, but everyone is called to be a private preacher. Start preaching to yourself. Depression is like an eight-year-old girl on donuts. It never shuts up. It tells you how bad you are, how worthless you are, how you'd be better off dead. On and on it goes. Stop listening to that rubbish. Talk back to yourself. Preach back to yourself. When depression starts in on you, drown it out with a sermon. What kind of sermon? Here's the mistake. Not a legal sermon. That's the mistake. I got to do better from now on. I got to pull myself up by my bootstraps. I got to find verses in the Bible that say in effect snap out of it. These are not the sermons that help you when you're depressed. I talked to a woman, I mean, I don't laugh because it's really sad, it was just so ludicrous. I talked to a woman, oh, maybe 15, 20 years ago, who was always depressed. And I asked her, do you read the Bible every day? And she said, yes, I do. And I said, well, what are your favorite Bible books to read? And she said, Ecclesiastes and James. I said, of course. No wonder. No wonder. One says, vanity of vanity, all is vanity. The other keeps saying, do more, do more, do more. These are valuable books as inspired as any other book, but they're not the books she needed. Maybe now she does need them, I don't know. But at that time, these were not the books she needed to be reading. She needed to be reading the Gospels that tell us about Christ's great love for sinners, for failures, for people who can't pull themselves up by their bootstraps. And so what you need to preach is not any old sermon, you need to preach The gospel starts with our predicament. The first thing the gospel delivers is not good news but bad news. The gospel starts with our predicament. It says we are sinful and we deserve to die. While this doesn't sound all that comforting, it is because it's true and serious. Depressed people can often see right through your attempts to just paper over everything. Oh, everything's fine, honey, let me pat your hand. Well, patting your hand is nice, but it doesn't make everything fine. The gospel tells us the truth. It says, yes, we are sinful. It says, in fact, you're far more sinful than you think you are. And you deserve to die more than you think you do. But it doesn't end with our predicament. That's where depression ends. At one point, the gospel and depression say the same thing. They say we're sinful and we deserve to die. But the gospel says more than that. The Gospel starts with our predicament, but it doesn't end with our predicament. It goes on to tell us what God has done about it. Not what you did about it. Not what you can do about it. Not what I can do about it. Not what your little pill can do about it. But what God has done about it. What did God do about it? He sent His Son into the world to take our sin and guilt and death upon Himself, which He did on the cross. then God raised Him from the dead and us with Him. This means objectively, whatever we feel or don't feel, objectively it means we're not condemned, we're not unloved, our lives are not worthless, unless Christ's life is worthless, unless Christ is condemned, unless Christ is unloved. Anyone willing to say these things? Anyone willing to say, yes, Christ is condemned? Yes, Christ's life is worthless? Yes, Christ is not loved by God? Anyone willing to say that? Any Christian willing to say that? If not, then neither is your life worthless. Neither are you unloved. Neither are you condemned. Because being a Christian doesn't mean being a nice person. It means being in union with Christ. He's the big circle with a little circle inside of it. Wherever the big circle goes, the little circle goes as well. In short, what the Gospel says to depression is this. Depression, you don't have the last word. Paul said death didn't have the last word. I say depression does not have the last word. God has the last word. And His last word to His people, enter into the joy. The answer to depression is the gospel. The gospel is a panacea. It's a cure for whatever ails you. The gospel answers depression by saying that a man who was so depressed that he was underground is now raised from the dead and we're in that man raised from the dead with him. And so let us join the Apostle Paul in praising the Lord. Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort. Let's pray, please. Heavenly Father, we ask your blessing upon this day. We ask your blessing upon this word. We pray that you would help people who are sad. Lord, help us as we struggle through the sorrows of this life into the joy that you have for us. And now, Lord, we commend ourselves in this service to you. In Jesus' name, Amen.