Now, let's just bow together in a word of prayer. Our Father and our God, we thank Thee for all the blessings that Thou hast bestowed upon us. We thank You, Lord, for all the good things in life that You give us. And our Father, Lift our hearts to Thee this morning in praise and in worship. And ask, our Father, that Thou wilt make us a thankful people. We praise Thee for all the temporal blessings of life and all the spiritual blessings that come our way. And, our Father, we thank You at this time, our gracious God, for the blessing of marriage We thank You, Lord, that You established it, that You instituted it. And, Our Father, we commend Sharon and George to Thee for Thursday and ask, O Lord, that Thy blessing would rest upon them. And, Our Father, we pray that on that day and in the days that lie ahead, that as they acknowledge the Lord in all His ways, we pray that the Lord would direct their paths. Remember our brother Darren. Bless him in his forthcoming work with faith mission. Use him, Lord, for your glory. And guide him in the days that lie ahead. We thank you, our Father, this morning for your Word. We thank you, Lord, for the benefit that we have today, the tremendous privilege that we hold in our hands, the infallible, inerrant Word of the living God. And, Our Father, we would just pray this morning that as we turn to its holy pages, that, Lord, You would minister to us. And, Our Father, that we might know that God is speaking to our hearts this morning. And, Our Father, that You would really have a message for people in this gathering this morning. And, Our Father, that You'll meet the needs of people, Your people. And, Our Father, that we might leave this place knowing that we have met with Thee. We need Your help, Lord. We realize that without Thee we can do nothing. And we would just pray, our gracious God, now that You would just equip us and, Lord, just grant us that fresh filling of the Holy Spirit. And, our Father, we pray that the Word of the Lord will come to our hearts with freshness and with power, for Christ's sake. Amen. I want you to turn with me in your Bibles this morning to the Psalm number 42, please. Psalm number 42. We looked last Sunday morning at the first psalm, The Secret of True Happiness, and I want to talk to you this morning on a problem that is wreaking havoc among God's people today. I want to talk to you about defeating depression. Defeating depression or, if you like, defeating despondency. And we are reading Psalm number 42. Psalm 42. as the heart or as the deer, panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?" Do you feel like that this morning? Is there a soul thirst for God? Have you got a hunger for God? The psalmist said, My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me. For I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy day. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance. O my God, my soul is cast down within me. Therefore will I remember Thee from the land of Jordan and of the Hermonites from the hill Miser. Deep calleth unto deep, but the noise of Thy waterspouts, all Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me and my prayer unto the God of my life. I will say unto God, my rock, why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I a-mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones mine enemies reproach me, while they say dearly unto me, Where is thy God? Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him who is the health of my countenance and my God. Judge me, O God, It is probable that these two Psalms were one psalm in the original. Judge me, O God. Plead my cause against an ungodly nation. O, deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man. For I were the God of my strength. Why dost Thou cast me off? Why go I a-mourning? Because of the oppression of the enemy. O, send out Thy light and Thy truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring me unto Thy holy hill and to Thy tabernacle. Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy. Yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God my God. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within me, hoping God? For I shall yet praise Him who is the health of my countenance and my God." Let's keep our Bibles open there at those two Psalms. Defeating despondency. Buzz Aldrin went to the moon. He returned to Earth and found that he couldn't cope with life on Earth. He went into serious depression. And then he went into print. And then he went on to talk shows in the United States of America to share his experience. Winston Churchill suffered greatly from depression. One night in an elevator, Lady Astor said to him, You are drunk, he retorted. Madam, you are ugly, but tomorrow I'll be sober. On one other occasion, she said to him, if I were married to you, I would give you arsenic poison. He said, if I were married to you, I would drink it. Churchill suffered tremendously from depression. He called it the black dog of depression. What about the President Abraham Lincoln? He also suffered terribly from depression. Hans Christian Andersen, lived in Copenhagen, wrote delightful storybooks for children that are famous to this very day. But he suffered all his life. From the problem of depression, on one occasion he wrote in his journal, I have no future anymore, nothing to look forward to, no idea as I am completely washed out. Depression is a serious problem around the world. It is estimated that there are over 2,000 suicides a day worldwide. In the United States of America alone, there are more than 4 million people who require special help for depression every single year. Depression is a serious problem in today's world. It is costing employers millions of pounds because their employees are not on the job, or else they're on the job, but they're not producing. They're not producing effectively. You say, what is depression? Someone defined it like this. Depression is extreme, is feeling extreme discouragement, dejection, despair, hopelessness. There is the desire to quit. You just can't make it. I wonder, have you ever been there? I wonder, are you there this morning? You see, no one is immune from depression Not even the Christian. The best of God's servants have found themselves in what John Bunyan called the slock of despond. Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant Reformation, was known to have fits of depression. Listen to his own words. He says, For more than a week I was close to the gates of death and hell. I trembled in all my members. Christ was wholly lost. I was shaken by desperation. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, was often in the pits of despondency in the latter years of his life. His office pairs used to send him from his church in London to the French Riviera, and they did that for one purpose, so that he might escape the problems and the pressures that surrounded his complicated life. And during most of his time there on the French Riviera, Charles Haddon Spurgeon suffered physically and emotionally. He was often in despair. He wrote a letter to his church after being gone several months. Part of it went like this. He writes, The furnace still glows around me. Since I last preached to you, I have been brought very low. My flesh has been tortured with pain. My spirit has been prospered with depression. Nights of weeping, days of watching have been mine. But I hope the cloud is passing. There are dungeons, you know, he said, beneath the castle of despair. Spurgeon often found himself in those dungeons. What about the psalmist? In Psalm 42 and 43, we find the psalmist asking the question three times. Why art thou cast down? Verse 5, Psalm 42. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted in me? The psalmist was in the pits. You name it, he had it. He was depressed. He was discouraged. He was downcast. He was stressed out. He was in the pit of despair. I wonder, is that where you are this morning? I wonder, has your world fallen apart? Are you wondering, where is God in all of this? Many scholars feel that these two Psalms were written by King Hezekiah And after David, he was the greatest king to sit upon the throne of Judah. He did more to bring the nation back to God than any other king. And two tremendously significant events took place in his life. The first was an illness which threatened to be his last, and from which he recovered only by a miracle of intervention. The second was an invasion by the Assyrians which threatened to be Judah's last and from which he was rescued and his nation by a miracle of help sent by a direct intervention of God. It seems that Psalm 42 may have been connected with Hezekiah's illness and Psalm 43 may have been connected with the Assyrian invasion. My dear friends, here is Hezekiah. And he is facing a serious illness. And he is also facing serious invasion from the north. And he is submerged in doubt. He is in the pit of despair. Three times, why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted in me? I want to talk to you this morning about defeating despondency. If you look at these Psalms, you'll notice, first of all, the reasons for depression. Look at the question he asks in verse 5. Why? Why art thou cast down? The phrase cast down means to be in the dumb, sad, discouraged. The Hebrew term for disquieted conveys the idea of an unpleasant sound, a clamor, a commotion. It refers to unpleasant music in the soul. Of course, the roots of depression may lie in many things. marital breakdown, persistent anxiety, wayward children, business worries, financial concerns, anxiety concerning the job, concerning the home, concerning the business. The underlying causes may be mental or physical or emotional or financial or moral or spiritual or whatever. And Hezekiah is saying, why? Why am I like this? What is the reason for my despondency? What is the cause of my despair? What was it that brought about this despondency in the life of Hezekiah? Well, it may have been physical. I did say that this psalm was connected with Hezekiah's illness. Indeed, if you care to look at verse 11, he refers to the health of his countenance. The last phrase in the psalm, the health of my countenance. And this has been taken by some in an absolutely literal way as referring to a feast, a feast that was marred and disfigured by the disease which afflicted him. Can you imagine the revulsion that His servants felt as they went into the presence of the King to minister to Him? And they saw this face that was twisted and marred. And they were apprehensive because they were scared that the disease that had gripped Hezekiah might grip them. Can you imagine the disgust the King felt? When He looks into that polished brass which serves Him as a mirror, and He sees His face, and He cannot bear to look upon Himself, He knows that He is about to die. He knows that He is about to be cut off. He knows that He is the hope of His nation. He has been the most godly King in fourteen generations. Why this? You know that depression is sometimes brought about by something physical. The experts tell us it can be brought about by erratic blood pressure, abnormal blood sugar, and other chemical imbalances which can contribute to despondency and depression. I talked about C.H. Spurgeon, one of the truly great preachers, if not the greatest, since the Apostle Paul. And he wrestled with this problem all of his life. And the main explanation in his case was undoubtedly the fact that he suffered from gout. He suffered from a gouty condition which eventually killed him. And doctors tell us that there is a tendency to acute depression, which is an unfeeling accompaniment of the gout which Spurgeon inherited from his family. Do you remember how depressed Elijah was when he was in Carmel? He had been the instrument of God in bringing drought and famine upon the land. No rain, according to my words. He had spent, what was it, a year? He had spent a year at the Brook Jareth and the Raven Hotel. He had gone on to Zarephath. And then the word of the Lord came to him and said, Elijah, your hidden ministry is over. Your public ministry will begin. And he went up Mount Carmel and he alone, or he felt that he was alone, was challenging the hundreds of false prophets. And Elijah, you remember that he heard the threat. of the Queen Jezebel. He ran for his life. He came right from the north of Israel right to the south. He came to Beersheba and he left his servant there, for when you're depressed, you want no one with you. And he went in the day's journey into the wilderness. He says, I've had enough, Lord. Take away my life. I'm no better than my father. And he was physically exhausted. And God came to him, and you remember how he ministered to him, to this physically exhausted, mentally frail servant of God. He gave him food. He gave him refreshment. He gave him a new vision of the greatness of his God. And tenderly, God ministered to him. And he gained his strength. And God recommissioned him. Go, return. I wonder this morning, are you having days of discouragement and despair because you're overworked? Aye, maybe even in the service of God. It's when the mind is weary and the body is tired, and the nerves are frayed that we're susceptible to depression. There's an old Greek motto that says, you'll break the bow if you keep it always bent. The Lord Jesus said, come ye yourselves apart and rest a while. And sometimes if we don't come apart, we will come apart. So the cause of his depression, it may have been physical. And then if you look at the psalm again, it may have been diabolical, satanic. You see, here was godly King Hezekiah under the threat and intimidation of the ruthless Assyrian army. Now you think of Hezekiah's situation. His kingdom is about to totter. His throne is about to fall. His city is about to be destroyed. His God is about to be dishonored. And behind the viciousness and the ruthlessness and the godlessness of the Assyrians is all the power of Satan. Wonder, could that be one of the causes of your depression this morning? The devil. May I remind you, he is the accuser and the destroyer. He wants to discourage us, and my dear friends, He'll do all in His power to make us despair. He throws His monkey wrench into our works. He knows from past experience. He's a great strategist, the devil, and He knows from past experience what weapons to use. And one of the most effective weapons He uses against us as the people of God is depression. The story is told that the devil was having an auction and selling off some of his most effective tools. And one of the tools that he sold off was unbelief, and it went for a tremendous price. Another tool that he sold off at the auction was doubt. But, my dear friends, the tool that sold most in the devil's auction was depression. Do you know why? Because this creeps in even where doubt and unbelief don't. Wonder, has the devil been reminding you of your past sins and past failures? Wonder, has he been getting you to look so much at yourself that you forgot to look at God? Your circumstances are blinding out God. I wonder, is your despondency this morning somehow the result of the attack of Satan? It may have been physical. It may have been diabolical, I think that it was. I think it was also spiritual, if you look at this act. Hezekiah was wrapped up in himself. He had trouble seeing God. You know, so often depression is selfish. When we focus on ourselves too much, on our problems, our needs, our wants, our desires, our whims, you know something? There are 52 personal pronouns in these two Psalms. The pronoun I is mentioned fourteen times, me sixteen times, my twenty-one times. On the other hand, God is only mentioned twenty times and the Lord is only mentioned once. And the psalmist has got an unhealthy fixation upon himself. He just can't see God. He is in the throes of seeing life as a mirror instead of a window. He need to look through his circumstances and see God. Is that the cause of your despondency this morning? Have you got your eyes off the Lord and onto yourself? Do you feel sorry for yourself? Are you all wrapped up in your own problems and pains? You know, self-pity is one of the most dangerous attitudes that you and I can ever cultivate. It poisons our system. Nothing looks right. Everything that people say and do somehow gets out of proportion. If you want to say, despised and despondent this morning, Major, examine yourself. Think more about yourself than others. Think more about yourself than God. What's the reason for your despondency this morning? Could it be that it's physical? Could it be that it's diabolical? It's satanic? Could it be that it's spiritual? Have you taken your eyes off God? Could it be that it's circumstantial? Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Look at the results of his depression in the psalm. What a picture of despair that is brought before us in this psalm. What an attitude, what a picture, what an accurate description of a man who is looking downcast and dejected. Have a look at him this morning. For in looking at him you may see yourself. Look at him. His face is lifeless. Do you notice the difference between verse 5 and verse 11? Look at verse 11. He says, Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him who is the health of my countenance and my God. In verse 11, the psalmist speaks about my countenance. In verse 5, the psalmist speaks about His countenance. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance. He declares that God's countenance, that the sight of God's countenance is always helpful. But in verse 11, he speaks of my countenance. In other words, the man who is depressed, the man who is miserable, the man who is unhappy, the man who is despondent, you can see it in his face. You take one look at him. You take one look at her and you see her condition. But the psalmist says, when I really look at God, as I get better, my face gets better also. He is the health of my countenance. I lose that drawn, perplexed, haggard, troubled, introspective appearance, and I begin to look calm and composed and bright and balanced. You see, my dear friends, if we are depressed and unhappy, whether we like it or not, it will show on our face. It will show on our face. Have you heard the expression, if you are happy, tell your face? If you're happy, tell your faith. You see, what we are this morning is written all over our face. If we're walking with the Lord, if we're walking close with the Lord, it will inevitably, invariably express itself in our countenance. I'm not suggesting that we should all go about with a false grin, showing off our false teeth. But I'll tell you this, I know this, that when Moses spent forty days and forty nights on the mount with God, the effects of his fellowship with God were observable to all. When he came down the mount into the camp, the skin of his face shone. But when you're in the darkness of depression, your face is drawn, it's troubled, it's fat. You know what I'm talking about this morning? Of course, some of you do. Your outward countenance is just revealing your inward condition to His face. His face is lifeless. And then He talks about His food. Look at verse 3. He says, My food is tasteless. He says, My tears have been my meat day and night while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? Fancy having tears for Sunday lunch? That's what the psalmist had. He's weeping and tearful. Everything seems to be on top of him. He cannot control his emotions. His depression is so acute that it's affecting his very appetite. Are we not familiar with this phenomenon? You're worried and anxious, depressed. Sometimes you lose that. You lose your appetite. You don't want your food. You're beginning to see the picture that the psalmist is painting here. Are you able to identify with it? His face is lifeless. His food is tasteless. And then his future is hopeless. All he knows about are floods of tears, verse 3. Floods of turmoil, verse 7. Floods of testing, verse 10. As the enemy rears his head and asks, verse 10, Where is thy God? I wonder, is that what Satan's whispering in your ear this morning? Where's your God? Why does God allow you to suffer like this? Why doesn't He come to your rescue? Doesn't God care about you? Is God unable to do anything about your situation? How are you going to survive in this furnace of fire? Maybe you've been asking yourself that question in recent weeks. Where is God? Where is God in the midst of my heartache? Where is God in the midst of my pain? Where is God in the midst of my mental distress? Where is God in the midst of my illness? Where is God in the midst of my broken relationship? Where is God when my business goes sour, when my husband leaves, when my health gives in, when my Ruth caves in? Where is God? But what can we do? What can we do in the midst of our despair, in the midst of our depression? You know, when the unsaved come to despair, you know what they do? They turn to drugs and alcohol and sex. But I want you to see this morning, not only the reasons for his depression and the results of his depression, look at the resources in his depression. You see, there are resources that God gives to you and I in the midst of our despondency. For one thing, we can talk to the Lord. That's what the psalmist did in Psalm 42 and 43. I think one of the reasons why we like the Psalms is because The psalmist, we're so able to identify with what the psalmist is passing through. And here the psalmist is just pouring out his heart to God. He's telling God how much he has hurt. He's telling God how disappointed in the way that things are going. He's obviously unburdening his feelings and his complaints. Look at what he says in verse 6. He says, Oh my God, my soul is cast down within me. Therefore will I remember thee from the hill of Jordan and of the Hermonites, from the hill Miser." He recalled when he went into the house of God. He reminisced about what God had done for his life in the past. And he comes into the presence of God and he lays all his burdens, his despondencies, his depressions at the Lord's feet. I wonder this morning, Christian friend, do your troubles, do your disappointments, do your depressions, do they lead you to God? Do they cause you to fall on your knees and come to the Lord? You say, which God? The living God, verse 2. The helping God, verse 5. The delivering God, verse 6. The commanding God, verse 8. My God, verse 11. Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged. Take it to the Lord in prayer. You know something? God never gets discouraged. God never gets discouraged. Isaiah says, He shall not feel nor be discouraged. God will never get discouraged. Therefore, go to someone who never gets discouraged and get some encouragement from Him. Talk to the Lord. Is that what you do when you're in the slough of despair? Do you simply go into the presence of God and fall at His feet and tell the Lord all about it? Do you talk to the Lord? And then this psalmist, you'll notice that he not only talked to the Lord, he trusted in the Lord. Verse 5, Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquiet in within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance. You see, with God there is hope. And the answer to depression is hope. Not hope in ourselves, but hope in the living God. My friends, downcast in heart and with skies that were overcast, the King Hezekiah, he was going about like one in mourning, yet he says in verse 8, Yet the Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me in my prayer unto the God of my life. You see, there's hope here. There's hope that God will penetrate the gloom, that God will lift the burden, that God will still the storm. Just as it was with Paul and Silas in the jails, so in the darkest hour God can prove His power. With God there's a silver lining. I wonder, are your circumstances such this morning that you've lost hope? Why art thou cast down, O my soul? What is it that's burdening you this morning? Are you down in the dumps because your kids are not seeing? Are you down in the dumps because your family's wayward? Are you down in the dumps because you can't meet this month's mortgage? Are you down in the dumps because you've been passed by for promotion at work? Are you down in the dumps because there's domestic upheaval? Hope in God. He'll never let you down. He's working all things together for your good and for His eternal glory. With God there is hope. Look at verse 5. With God there is help. He says in verse 5, "...why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance." God is not sending help. God is the help. God is our refuge and help. A very present help in trouble. God is our refuge. He hides us. God is our strength. He helps us. I wonder, does life seem to be collapsing around you? Is the storm blowing? Is the battle raging? My friend, don't forget that God hides you so that He can help you. And when we go to Him, He strengthens us and enables us to return and face those depressions, those despondencies, those changes. With God there is hope. With God there is help. And then if you look at verse 11, with God there is health. The psalmist says, the health of my countenance. You know, Hezekiah's illness had brought him right to the door of death. Isaiah came to him and said to him one day, Set your house in order, Hezekiah. You're going to die and not live. I mean, the prophet of God came into the presence of the king and he says, Hezekiah, set your house in order. You're going to die and not live. Incidentally, this morning, is your house in order? Is your house in order? Have you set your house in order spiritually? Have you set your house in order financially, so that when you die, sir, you're not going to leave your wife a big debt that's going to be a blur on your testimony? Have you set your house in order? Have you set your house in order spiritually? Have you set your house in order financially? Have you set your house in order materially? Set thine house... Here was Hezekiah. He was on the brink of death, and yet God healed him. God was the health of his countenance. God delivered him. He looked in the mirror again and his face was fair and his face was fresh. And God had worked a miracle. I wonder what does your face reveal this morning? Is it fearful? Is it downcast? Is it pained? God can bring a change to your face because God can bring a change to your heart. With God, there is hope. With God, there is help. And with God, there is help. You may not know it this morning, but William Cuyper, the guy that wrote, There is a fountain filled with blood. God moves in a mysterious way. In so many other of our hymns that we sing, William Cowper was subject to deep depression. At the age of 32, he passed through a great crisis in his life. One night he hired a man to drive him to the River Ouse so that he could finish it off. A dense fog came down that night and the coachman lost his way and Cowper groped his way to a door in the midst of the fog and he discovered that the coachman had done a complete circle in the fog and he was knocking at his own door. Frustrated and angry, he went into his house. He tied a rope to the ceiling. He tried to hang himself. He was found unconscious. This is a hymn writer we're talking about now. He was found unconscious and alive on the floor. The next morning, he fell on a knife, only for the blade of that knife to break and his life was spared again. The next morning, in an unusual fit of joy that just seemed to come to him, he lifted the Word of God from a shelf and he opened it. at the epistle to the Romans, and whatever he read that morning, he felt great strength. Whatever he read in the epistle of Romans, he felt immediate relief. And then he sat down and he wrote these words as he thought of the experiences through which he had passed in the previous days. God moves in a mysterious way. His wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. Blind unbelief is sure to err, and scorn his work in vain. God is his own interpreter, and He will make it plain. Heard in Believer this morning, your Heavenly Father loves you, and He will see you through. Trust Him. Let's pray.