You may be seated. I invite you to turn with me, if you would, in your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter 19. Today we're going to be taking a look at verses 8 through 21. I'm going to read through to the end of the chapter, but I'm only going to be considering today verses 8 through 14. This is going to be the primary verses that we're looking at. Next week, we'll consider the rest of it. I wanted you to see the full context to better understand the work that the Lord was doing in Elijah's life as we are discussing it today. But before we go into the presence of the living God, let us consider all of the things that he has done for us and giving us his word and encouraging us. Today, we're going to be looking at the serious subject of depression, spiritual depression, something that I know has afflicted me. I've had long periods of melancholy, never as bad. as those truly despairing times prior to becoming a Christian. But nonetheless, I do understand what Spurgeon described to his students as the minister's fainting fits, the loss of confidence, and the loss of that sense of the love of God, the feeling that all is lost, and so on. And we're going to see that, unfortunately, afflicting Elijah and causing him to react in a way that is not that was not godly, not faithful, not in keeping with his calling as not just a prophet, but as a man of God. Before, therefore, we read about that, let us go into the presence of the God who nonetheless kept Elijah from falling. God, our gracious Father, I do pray now, Lord, that as we turn to your word, we will remember that nothing afflicted Elijah that does not afflict us today. And, oh, Lord, the things that he was unable to endure in your strength, you will cause us to endure as well. Lord, you called him to do your work, and I know, Lord, that you have called these, your servants, to do your work as well, and there's this time. So I pray, Lord, that we would remember how much we need your support. Help me now to preach. May I simply become the messenger. May I decrease even as Christ increases. May I become transparent, Lord, so that people might see through me all the way to Christ. And may His name be glorified. And we pray this in Jesus' holy name. Amen. Amen. Reading chapter 19, starting with verse 8. So he arose and ate and drank, and he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights, as far as Horeb, the mountain of God. And there he went into a cave, and spent the night in that place. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah? So he said, I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts, for the children of Israel, who have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they seek to take my life. Then he said, go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire. But the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still small voice. So it was when Elijah heard it that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. Suddenly a voice came to him and said, What are you doing here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts, because the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they seek to take my life. Then the Lord said to him, go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus, and when you arrive, anoint Hazael as king over Syria. Also, you shall anoint Jehu, the son of Nimshi, as king over Israel. And Elisha, the son of Shaphat, of Abel Meholah, you shall anoint as prophet in your place. It shall be that whoever escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill, and whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. Yet I have reserved 7,000 in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.' So he departed from there and found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen before him, and he was with the 12th. Then Elisha passed by him and threw his mantle on him, and he left the oxen and ran after Elisha and said, please, let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you. And he said to him, go back again, for what have I to do with you? Or rather, for what have I done to you? So Elisha turned back from him and took a yoke of oxen and slaughtered them and boiled their flesh using the oxen's equipment and gave it to the people and they ate. Then he arose and followed Elisha and became his servant. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever." I think we have a tendency, whether or not we realize it, to believe that the mighty men of the faith, those whom God has used in profound ways to advance the kingdom, that they simply went from strength to strength, that it was always the mountaintop experience that they were having, and that these men never once, as a result, dealt with spiritual depression. They were not men like us. They were of some sort of different stock. But as we have seen Time and again, no, these were ordinary men who were given extraordinary gifts, but nonetheless, they were like us. It simply isn't true that they didn't suffer from spiritual depression. They did. One only has to read the Psalms, that book that Calvin rightly called the anatomy of the soul, to see how often King David, for instance, struggled with serious depression. Psalm 6.6, for instance, says, I am weary with my groaning. All night I make my bed swim. I drench my couch with my tears. And then in Psalm 42.5, we see the inner struggle going on in his heart. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope 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 I will remember you from the land of the Jordan and from the heights of Hermon, from the hill Mazar." It wasn't just David though. The prophets after him, we've seen it in the life of Elijah, the Great Depression that he had, his desire to die that we talked about last week. And the Apostle Paul also, he wrote about his troubles time and again. In 2 Corinthians 7.5, for instance, he says, for indeed, when we came to Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, for we were troubled on every side. Outside were conflicts, inside were fears. The Apostle Paul, a man who wrote the majority of the New Testament, he had the same kind of trepidation that so many of us deal with, the fear of what's going on around us. Even our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, dealt with sorrows of the soul. The scripture is not speaking in an untrue way when it speaks of him as the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. You remember, he himself was deeply troubled at various points in his ministry. As we will see as we continue reading through John 11, Jesus wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus, even though he was about to raise him from the dead. And we see him in the extreme sorrows of the soul in the garden, the garden of Gethsemane, as he was about to go to the cross. We read in Matthew 26, 37, and he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and he began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then he said to them, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful even to death. Stay here and watch with me. As Spurgeon, who also dealt with periods of deep melancholy, pointed out in his lectures to his students, he said this, fits of depression come over the most of us. Usually cheerful as we may be, we must at intervals be cast down. The strong are not always vigorous, the wise not always ready, the brave not always courageous, and the joyous not always happy. To show you first, before we do anything else, I want to establish this as a truth. To be sorrowful, to be cast down in your spirit, to be depressed, is not sinful. That is not sinful in and of itself. In a fallen world, it is inevitable that we would go through periods of sorrow. Indeed, the man who is not able to see things to be sorrowful for in the world must be either blind or insane. The world is a fallen place. Terrible things happen. And sometimes in our lives, we go through things that cause us sorrow and grief. We are not meant to be happy, for instance, when a loved one dies. is a result of the fall. It produces a separation between those whom we love, we have grown to lean upon, the people whom the Lord has given to us. Now, it is a temporary loss for the Christian. We know that we'll see them again. Yet, if it caused Christ to weep at the grave of his friend Lazarus, even though he was about to raise him from the dead, I realize I've just spoiled the story for those of you who have not read on in John chapter 11. But nonetheless, it is something to consider, that grief is one of the natural emotions that people pass through, and depression as well. But having established that, it is important to say this. The way that we handle that depression, particularly when we indulge in sulkiness or self-pity, can and is, can be rather, and is often sinful. Our reaction to that depression, what we say it allows us to do, the checks we allow it to write for us. I deserve to be able to do this kind of thing. For instance, we saw how Jonah, he was sent to Nineveh. He doesn't want to go. They're the enemies of his people, the dreaded Assyrians. He knows that the best thing that could happen for the northern kingdom of Israel is for Assyria to be destroyed entirely, and so he doesn't want the Lord to show them mercy, so he runs away. The Lord brings him back, doesn't he? He's swallowed by a whale, spat up on the shore. He does go to Nineveh, and then they repent, and he is depressed and furious. Do you do well to be angry, Jonah? And what's his reply? No, Lord, I repent. I'm sorry. That's wrong. I shouldn't be angry. No, he says, yes, I do well to be angry. And how often has that been our response to depression? We become angry, and then we say, yes, I have a right to be angry. Unfortunately, here we see Elijah, who is such a giant amongst the men of the Old Testament that he would later represent the prophets standing alongside Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus. That's how important this man was and is. And yet here, what has happened? He's run from Jezebel. He's run away from the place where he was sent to minister in Israel. He's even run all the way through Judah which was a place of safety. As soon as he crossed the border, he was no longer under Jezebel's orders in any sense. The civil magistrate had changed entirely. And now, he's run all the way into the wilderness, outside even the kingdom of Judah, and he just wants to die. He is spiritually depressed and not responding well to it. Now, what precipitated all this? I mean, in one sense, it seems counterintuitive, doesn't it? We had all of that success. We had the great success on Mount Carmel when God had answered his prayer with fire, showing that Baal was nothing and that he was everything and that his prophet Elijah spoke the truth. The people, you remember, had acknowledged that that was the case. The Lord, he is God, they had shouted out. They denied Baal at that point in time. Then God had answered his prayers by granting rain. There had been an end to the three years of famine at that point. He had run to Jezreel ahead of the chariot of Ahab, and so on. All of these wonderful things had happened. He, no doubt, imagined even better things were in store for the northern kingdom. But there had been no great reformation in Israel. All of these mighty works of God had happened. There was no revival. There was no repentance amongst the people. The people had not turned away from their false worship. Ahab and Jezebel had not repented or been removed from office. In fact, Elijah, after all of these successes, after all this vindication, he had been declared an outlaw and was told if he was found in the realm of Ahab and Jezebel, he would be put to death just like the prophets of Baal had been. To Elijah's thinking, this is clearly an anti-climax. It is something that he did not expect, something that he did not think, more importantly, was fair or right. It's not fair. God, I did my best. You didn't give me a break. You didn't produce the revival, the reformation, the great things that I expected. How is that fair? And then even after God miraculously fed him in the wilderness, which was a sure indication that God didn't want him to die, and that he had more work for him, even after he sent him to Mount Horeb and he was able to go 40 days and 40 nights simply using the food that he'd been given by angels. He is not only still depressed when he gets there, what we can tell from The way he answers the Lord is that he has been rehearsing to himself all of the reasons why his self-pity is justified. Why it's all the way he should feel. So when he finally arrives at Mount Sinai and he goes into the cave, and some scholars have speculated, we don't know, that this is the same cave that Moses was hidden in. You remember when the glory of the Lord passed before him? And the Lord put him in that place where he could see him as he was going away, but not as he was advancing. You could not see the face of the Lord and live. He is asked by the Lord, what are you doing here, Elijah? There is a rebuke implied in that. This is not what, I mean, when you ask a child, what are you doing here? You're not asking, this is the place you're supposed to be, right? You're up to no good, aren't you? What are you doing here? Elijah has run away from his ministry. He is no longer in the place that he's supposed to be. He's supposed to still be in the northern kingdom confronting evil and doing the Lord's work, listening for his voice, not running away. God, of course, knows the answer to what are you doing here, just as most parents know the answer to what are you doing here when they ask their children, what are you up to? I know what you're up to. I want you to tell me what you're up to. Nothing? Really. So, he is asking this question, and he is asking it in a way that actually encourages the prophet to pour out his heart before the Lord, to set his case, even though it's faulty, before the Lord. And Elijah responds. He gives his oy veist mir speech. For those of you who don't speak Yiddish, oh, woe is me. He says it. in this format. So he said, I've been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they seek to take my life. So his first claim is, I have been very zealous for you, O God. Didn't I do everything that you asked me to? Haven't I been? I did the right stuff, and I didn't get a reward. Every day, even when everyone was going astray, I remained loyal. I preached. I prayed. I kept your commandments. And it wasn't easy in the setting that you put me in. Second claim, despite the fact that I did everything right, The people you sent me to haven't changed at all. They are worse than ever. No faith. No repentance. My ministry is an abject failure. What's the point of me being there? Honestly. Claim number three. I alone am left faithful. And what is my reward? They want to kill me. I'm the last believer on earth, God. And you don't seem to realize that. You just keep loading me up. Well, he said these things because he'd been saying these things to himself. And by the time he spoke them to God, I have no doubt he believed them. He absolutely believed them. He developed the dreaded martyr complex. No one suffers like I do. all the time. And the Lord isn't going to leave him in that condition, because these claims, while they had some truth to them, they are all only half-truths at best. What has happened is, like Peter, Elijah has taken his eyes off the Lord. You remember when Jesus invited Peter, or Peter said, can I come to you? And the Lord Jesus said, come. When they were in the midst of the storm, and Jesus was walking on water, Peter gets out of the boat, and he walks for a little while, and then he takes his eyes off the Lord, and instead of looking at Christ, the author and finisher of his faith, the Alpha and Omega, he instead looks at the winds, and he looks at the waves, and he looks at the storm, and he's suddenly sinking. This is all too much. Can't do it. Even if God is with me, I can't do it. So, yes, let's examine his claims. He had been zealous, but what is he doing now? He'd abandoned his ministry. He's running away. Where is your zeal now, Elijah? Your vaunted zeal? You are as far as you can possibly get without getting on a ship. from the place where the Lord had put him. He'd also forgotten the principle spelled out by Jesus in Luke 17 10. And we often do this. We expect a medal for showing up. Now it used to be, I don't know how it is in the armed forces today, it used to be the case that you had to do something outrageously above and beyond. what is expected of you each day as a soldier in order to get a medal. Some act of great valor to go way past all of your compatriots. But unfortunately, often what happens is when we just do the things that God tells us to do, we expect a giant reward for it. We expect to be exalted, to be honored, to be lifted up. One of the things that is never good for the heart of a Christian is to be exalted and lifted up in the eyes of people, mere men. Our heads begin to grow in size, and they can often get to the point where an entire building cannot contain them. It's not enough. I wanted, when I first started church planting, I wanted immense growth. I wanted for us to go from eight people to 250 in a year. That's what I really wanted. But had I been given that, looking back, I now know that would have been very, very, very bad for me. and it probably would have destroyed me. Great success like that is something that very few people can handle. It takes an incredibly humble heart in order for that to happen. But what had happened here is Elijah had forgotten a principle that Jesus will spell out in the Gospels much later on in time, obviously from the point at which Elijah is at, but nonetheless one that he should have understood. In Luke 17.10, Jesus said, so likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, we are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do. Now, in the Reformation, there was this principle that the reformers reestablished. It was this. They used to say, that is the Roman Catholic Church, with no basis whatsoever in scripture, that you could do works of what was called supererogation. You could do more than you were commanded to do by God. And then when you did that, that the merit of your works would be placed in the treasury of merit, and other people could pray for it to be given to them. This is nowhere in the Bible, and the fact is you can't do more than God commands you to do. The very fact is we in all ways fail day after day to do the very things that we're supposed to do. We sin by omission and commission every single day. There is a great truth in the statement that in my best prayer there's enough sin to send me to hell. So we can't do more than is expected of us. I repeat this again and again, because it's a point that was something that I needed to learn myself. John Gerstner used to say to his students, when they came to him and they produced shoddy work, and they would put it in his hands, and they would say, after he gave them a C+, or D, or whatever, Professor Gerstner, I did my best. He would turn to them and say, young man, you have never done your best. That's the fact. Each and every one of us, we don't do our best. Most of us, when we're doing our work, are just doing enough to get over the line, and sometimes not even that. Additionally, yes, there had been a time of revival and reformation that Elijah wanted that had not come to pass. It had not been the Great Awakening of the Northern Kingdom. But Elijah had forgotten that our desires and God's plans are very different things. What we want and what God has determined will occur. don't line up most of the time. And no, he was not last. He was not I alone am left. What about faithful Obadiah, the man who had hidden a hundred prophets in the cave and had fed them out of the king's own storehouse, putting his own neck on the line? What about the hundred prophets there who had been hidden in the first place? And yes, Jezebel was seeking to kill him, but the Lord had demonstrated time and time again that he would not let that happen. Brothers and sisters, you don't need to fear man. You are immortal until the day that God has determined he will bring you to him. Do you understand that? He never forgets you. You may think that you're lost, but he knows where you are. He doesn't even need GPS to locate you. But getting people who are despondent like Elijah is to see things as they really are, instead of looking at everything through the gloom filter, I have to tell you, this is very, very hard. Because the natural tendency is to immediately snap back, even after you've set before them this mercy, this blessing, this good thing, that good thing, all the things that the Lord has done for you in the past. Yeah, but now. It's always comma, but. But right now, not going the way it should be. God is making a mistake is what we essentially, we may not, you know, if we were to spell it out to the person. So God has made a mistake in your life then. God is not perfect. His plans are not perfect. Something's out of whack. You're the thing that he messed up in the universe. Imagine that. Is that really the case? Does God not do all things well? If you believe God does all things well, if you believe that all things, I mean, if you believe Romans 8, 28, all things work for the good of those who love God, those who are the called according to His promises. Are they not? Is that not true? Are you not the called? Do all things not work out? Does He not love you? When you're not getting what you want, does God suddenly not love you? Is that an indication? When your dad spanked you because you'd done something wrong, he said, what are you doing here? And you knew you were in the wrong place, up to no good. And he spanked you. Was that because he didn't love you in that moment? Our fathers disciplined us, and our mothers too, because they love us. If they didn't love us, they wouldn't discipline us. And the Lord loves us. But as I said, it's so hard to get people to see that. Instead, though, of merely pointing out that Elijah is lying to himself, and the Lord could have done that, and to God, the Lord sends him out of the cave, and he gives him an object. Listen. He says, go stand on the mountainside. Then we read, didn't we, in verses 11 through 13, then he said, go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by. and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire. But the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still small voice. And where is the Lord? He is in that still small voice. The Lord passes by. And there are these great and mighty signs. There's a wind strong enough. Think of this. We've seen those videos where a tornado goes through. a trailer park, or even a development, and it just throws houses all over the place. But we're not talking about houses, we're talking about a mountainside. We're talking about a wind strong enough to break rocks. And then an earthquake, and then the fire of the Lord, the fire of the Lord that had consumed the altar, and all of these things. These great and mighty signs that only the Lord could do. But God is not in any of these things. Finally, there's just a small, still voice, and that's where the Lord is. What is God teaching Elijah in the midst of this? Well, he's teaching him, Elijah, you expect me to work through great things all the time, fire from heaven, earthquakes, hurricanes, but that's not the way God usually works. It really isn't. How does the Lord normally work? It's in the small things. It's in the voice, the words of the prophet, the preaching of my servants, as the Lord would later tell his people via Isaiah. This is incredibly important for us to remember in Isaiah 55, 8 and 9. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. The Lord doesn't work the way we would. We need to get used to that. Sometimes the Lord does do these great and mighty works, doesn't he? He does answer Elijah with fire. He does produce this mighty rain and so on. But sometimes, while the Lord moves a nation through a great awakening where thousands are suddenly brought to faith, it's usually, though, not that way. It's usually the slow and steady addition of people via the ordinary preaching, the ordinary faithful preaching of the gospel Sunday by Sunday. One of the things that we need to fix in our minds, though, is the things that we call ordinary. The ordinary means of grace are extraordinary because they come with the power of God behind them. I don't need to scream at you. I hope I don't need to scream at you. Do I need to scream at you? I don't need to scream at you or rant and rave in order for people to be saved. I don't need a guy on the keyboard next to me. Whenever I say something, playing a tune, do you all know? You know, that kind of thing. We don't need to add to the means of grace that God has already given us. We just do the things that he said, and his plan advances. How do we do that? By obeying his commands. What is Elijah not doing right now? Obeying his commands. But Elijah is not quick to learn, so when he's asked again, he gets the same answer that he did in verse 10. In verse 14, he says exactly, how many times did he rehearse this? This is my answer. When God says to me, boom, I'm gonna say that. Haven't changed my mind. God is having none of it, though. He tells him, do you seriously think my plans have gone astray? You are not alone, Elijah. You're not the last person, okay? I still have my remnant. I have my 7,000 in Israel, and my plans will come to fruition. But the Lord is merciful. He says, I'm going to give you a helper and a successor, Elijah. Elisha will be your, not just your successor, but the man who stands by you. And I will vindicate myself, and I will avenge the blood of the prophets. And you are a critical part of my plan, Elijah. Now does God really need Elijah to do all of this? No. But part of the mercy that the Lord shows to Elijah is including him in that. So he says to him, get up, end the pity party, and start doing the work that I assigned to you. Do your ministry. Now, what are the lessons that we should learn from all of this? I hope most of them are evident, but first, don't let a troubled soul lead you into sinful self-pity, and then beyond that sinful self-pity into doing things that are outright sinful, because you said, well, this is too tough for me. OK, so I'm depressed. That's not a sin. I start pitying myself as I spiral lower and lower. That is a sin. Then I start doing things because I'm depressed. Oh, I'm so depressed. I'm going to start drinking really heavily. That might make me feel better. Does it? No. It just makes things worse. I could list off, I'm going to do this sin that'll make me feel better, or this sin that makes me feel better, or this sin. And they may give you temporary happiness for a few moments, but no real joy. And it just gets worse and worse and worse. But that's what happens with self-pity. We need to understand, though, that as Christians in a fallen world, we're going to endure depression or sadness. Now, once in a while, you do meet that person who is indefatigably, if I can use that great old word, happy. OK? They drive me crazy. I shouldn't have admitted that. That was an inner monologue thing, not an outer monologue thing. But they are very few and far between. They really are. The ordinary state of the Christian, especially in a world as messed up as ours, is going to be sorrowful from time to time. I understand this as a pastor, and this is something that you need to understand. Pastors are particularly prone to that kind of melancholy and that depression, even if they pretend they're not. The pastors you need to worry about are the ones who pretend they're not. OK? Because what they're doing is they're putting up a facade. When it begins to crack, you know what they do? They run to another congregation where they haven't figured it out yet. But Spurgeon wrote this. He said, all mental work tends to weary and to depress. For much study is a weariness of the flesh. But ours, he's speaking of pastors, he's talking to his students, is more than mental work. It is heart work, the labor of our inmost soul. How often on Lord's Day evenings do we feel as if our life were completely washed out of us? After pouring out our souls over our congregations, we feel like empty earthen pitchers which a child might break." I know exactly what he's talking about. And I know that Elijah was feeling that way as well. Completely poured out, completely used up. But in those moments, preach the truth to yourself. You remember David confessing his heart sickness, how sad his soul was in Psalm 42? Well, it doesn't end there. In Psalm 42, and turn in your Bibles, will you, to Psalm 42, I want you to see this for yourself. There we read, deep calls unto deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and billows, this is verse seven, have gone over me. The Lord will command his loving kindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, a prayer to the God of my life. I will say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with the breaking of my bones, my enemies reproach me while they say to me all day long, where is your God? And then in 11, here's the key. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him, the help of my countenance and my God. The strength to overcome depression is not to be found in you or to be found in sinful pursuit, certainly. It's to be found in the Lord. And the Lord's work progresses according to his plans, not ours. We don't have time to read it, Go home today and read Luke 24. That's the story of where, starting with verse 13, that's where Jesus meets with two dispirited apostles of his, two disciples of the Lord, who are walking to Emmaus after the crucifixion, and they are as downcast as can be, because the Lord whom they had thought was the Messiah has been put to death. And Jesus approaches them, and what does he do? He opens up the Bible, and he shows them, did not these things have to happen? All those things had to occur in order for salvation to be carried out the way the Lord intended. Please understand this. The Lord's plans include you, and whatever happens in your life is not a mistake. Everything is going according to the Lord's plans. Now, in our lives, we don't see how it works. We will only see how the Lord's plans came to fruition in eternity. What is our calling, therefore, here on earth? It's to trust Him, to listen to His commands, to walk by faith. It is hard to walk by faith when you are depressed. Sometimes it's hard to get out of bed when you're depressed. But nonetheless, that's our calling, not to run away. And there is work for you to do. Remember, when you're depressed, God hasn't changed. Your feelings don't change God. Do you understand that? Say to yourself, my feelings don't change God's nature. My feelings don't indicate that God's plans have failed. My feelings don't cause God to cease to exist. No matter how you feel, no matter where you are, God is as powerful as He was yesterday, today, and tomorrow. As loving as He was yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And His plans for you have not changed. You can still trust Him day by day. And you are, believe it or not, important to God. That should amaze you. You are important to Him. Regardless of who you are. And there is still work for you to do. It may not be Elijah work. We all want to be the person who's standing there when the fire falls from heaven and so on. But actually, most of us are not called to anything that's splendid. If you are, that's a great blessing. But that's not the way it is for most of us. But that doesn't mean that we are less blessed, less important, and so on. It just means that God is working in your life differently. So we advance on in his strength, in reverence, in humility. We do the work. The answer then for us in the midst of our depression is not to expect that God is going to take away the storm, that he's going to take away the opposition. Okay, notice this. When Peter comes to Christ and he begins sinking in the waves, Christ reaches out. and pulls him up again. He says, OK, Peter, you're obviously not of sterner stock. Let's set the world to easy mode for you, Peter. There we go. Now you're able to do it without me, in your own power. That's not going to happen in your life, just as it didn't happen in Peter's life. Was that the last storm that he encountered? Last difficulty? The courtyard, and the priest, and the maidservant, that was all still ahead of him at that point in time. The Lord is not going to set it to easy mode. It's going to be the case that you will endure storms, but you'll continue on in the power of the Lord. Let me close with this. Turn in your Bibles with me to 2 Corinthians 4-7. We're going to read the words of Paul. And remember, this is a man who endured so much suffering, so much difficulty in his life and in his ministry. It was never easy for him. He writes this starting in 2 Corinthians 4, 7, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels. The excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed. We are perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. Always caring about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you. And since we have the same spirit of faith according to what is written, I believed and therefore I spoke, we also believe and therefore speak, knowing that he who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus and will present us with you. For all things are for your sakes that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God. Therefore, we do not lose heart. It doesn't say, therefore, we are never depressed. It's we do not lose heart, even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day for our light affliction, which is but for a moment is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. That's the perspective that we need, brothers and sisters. We need the eternal perspective. We need the eyes of faith. We need the eyes of simple obedience. We need the eyes that come with knowing that God's plans for us are good and they will endure to the very end. Let's go before him now. God, our Father, I do thank you, Lord, that our lives are not our own, that we aren't the captains of our own fate, that we, oh Lord, are your called ones. and those whom you call, Lord, you will never let go. Help us then, O Lord, to not allow ourselves to fall into the sin, pity spiral, Lord. Help us, O Lord, to instead go on, to cry out to you when we have need, to pray as David prayed, but to know, O Lord, that we need to be preaching the gospel to ourselves every single day, saying, why are you downcast, O my soul? Hope in the Lord. to put our trust in you. You've never let your people down. You never will. And you haven't forgotten them. Lord, let us never, therefore, be beguiled by the devil into despair. But instead, help us to faithfully walk with you all the days of our life until in your time. And you call us to be with you or you return to be with us. Either way, Lord, we look forward to the day of your certain appearing. Thank you for the way that you support us. We pray this in Jesus' holiness.