The Bible & Depression

Introduction

Anyway, welcome if you’re visiting. We’re so glad you’re here. as Tim says, we’ve we close in pretty well. So I believe the plan is this week to start knocking out that wall. So you’ll probably see a little dust and stuff from now on until we get the auditorium expanded. But we’re glad you’re with us. I am the designated hitter, the starter is on the bench. He’ll he’ll be back at bat this afternoon. So if you can please come back this afternoon and see him. We’re gonna so last night I got back from the sixth leaving the pit series. the one yesterday was on grief, loss, and betrayal. And somehow the timing has just worked out that it seems to be the night I get back the day after I get back from one.

I’m preaching on the one from the previous month. So just the way it’s worked out. So I’m gonna be talking this morning about depression, which was the and what the Bible has to say about that, which was the topic in May. so that’s the plan for this morning, and we’re gonna kind of do what we did last month, give a biblical lesson on depression and then have a workshop or an open discussion session about the clinical aspects of it. We’re not gonna do that today because it’s Father’s Day, but next Sunday at 3 30, if you’re able to make it. We’re gonna talk about things like the eight major causes of depression, the nine different types of depression, how you can help yourself, where you can go for help, how you can help others.

1. Depression Is Different From Sadness

We’ll talk about those kind of things. So invite you next Sunday at 3 30 to do that. One thing you may not realize, and this is just kind of a random fact, but children can suffer from depression, and it wasn’t until 1980 that was discovered really to be something that you know was being published about and talked about. So just something to keep in mind. So let’s talk about let’s start with the definition of our terms. depression is different from sadness or feeling down from time to time. it’s something that really engulfs your life. So we’re talking about if you’re clinically depressed, this totally interferes with your ability to function every day. You feel hopeless and helpless, you may even have suicidal thoughts, those kind of things.

That’s different from being sad and being you know occasionally down, which all of us experience from time to time. And doctors are very quick to diagnose depression. So one of the Art Adams, who’s one of the founders of this leaving the pit, was telling us that he felt several years ago he felt kind of low and kind of sluggish, and he went to a doctor to find out if he could if she could help him ascertain what the problem was. She asked him three questions, one of which was his name, and then said, You have depression, and gave him a prescription. So it’s something that is too readily diagnosed when it may not necessarily be the issue. And he told her, you don’t understand what I do, I diagnose people, I know it’s not depression, it’s something else.

He went to a different doctor, and it turned out he had very high blood sugar levels. So it’s but it’s just interesting that it is very quickly diagnosed and many times incorrectly. But what’s interesting is that depression is the number one cause of disability worldwide. So it’s it’s a not a it’s pretty prevalent. So before we start, let’s just w lay some ground rules. Or one of the things I wanted to say in just in general, with regarding anybody here who may be suffering from this or any of the other things we’ve talked about, we need to learn to appreciate and respect one another. There’s no place to be dismissive or judgmental in the church until you really know the details about somebody’s life.

Be careful what you think about that person and their faith or your perception of their lack of it. So we just need to be careful about that. So depression. sometimes we are able to get through the tragedies of life that we all deal with from time to time, but other times sadness spirals out of control. It may come from experiences that pile up on top of another, it may come just out of the blue, and it can overwhelm what it can overwhelm us with darkness and sadness, and our emotional and physical strength is drained, and it’s more than just feeling sad, like I said. So let’s look at what the Bible has to say about that. before I do that, I’m not a doctor, although I did say at Holiday and Express recently, but it’s pretty easy to see.

This is a brain scan, and it’s pretty easy to see from a lay person’s perspective that the brain is different from a depressed person and a non-depressed person. I don’t know what the yellow and the blue stand for, but radically different scans of a brain to tell you that this is a real problem, this is a physiological problem, and it’s not something just made up or you know a psychological issue. So anger is often at the kind of underlies depression, and a working definition that they gave us of depression was anger turns inward, and that’s kind of hard to spot. In fact, they were saying that if you notice in the relating to the church and the worship service, if you notice somebody that’s always heading right for the door, never talks to anybody, that could be someone suffering from depression.

Not necessarily.

So how can you tell? Oh, so I skipped a slide there. Oh, so I didn’t skip a slide. So hang on a second. Okay, so a slide’s missing. So how do you know you’re depressed? if you do things slowly, your future seems hopeless. it’s hard to concentrate while you’re reading, you have difficulty making decision and decisions and the pleasure and joy has gone out of life, you’re probably dealing with depression and need and need professional help. So sometimes you can’t get out of bed till two or three in the afternoon, you quit activities you would normally do, you don’t have any hope, and as I mentioned before, you may even have suicidal thoughts. So what it is not is just made up in your mind.

It is not as we saw in the brain scans, this is a real physiological issue. It’s not a made up illness, it has nothing to do with laziness or just a couple of days of feeling sad or blue. Typically, if you are, if you’re down and sad and unable to function for two weeks or longer, that was kind of the time frame that was shared with us for the by the professionals. That’s when you need to consider the fact that you may have a clinical case of depression and you need to get some help dealing with it.

So it’s also not a sign of a lack of faith. It’s not a message from God that you are not faithful. We’re going to look at some biblical characters that exhibited signs of possible depression and we’re still faithful to God. It’s not something you brought on by choice or something you can we can fix by just feeling better. So telling someone to snap out of it doesn’t help. So I’m sure you’d probably agree that willpower and mental toughness are highly prized in our society. We’re often quick to label people as whiners or lazy or feeling sorry for themselves, which gets back to the comment I made at the outset about being careful not to judge people until you know the situ their situation. So the typical response of helpers is to identify what they think you should do to get yourself out of your depression.

So some responses may be just don’t think about it. Or quit isolating yourself and withdrawing yourself. Go interact with people. Get involved in something you enjoy. See, the problem is when you tell somebody with depression those kind of things, they don’t feel like doing those kind of things. So it’s not helpful at all. From a biblical perspective, we may say things like to help them rejoice in the Lord, think on positive things, pray more, study the scriptures more. Those are all good things, but they’re not necessarily helpful to someone who’s got a severe case of depression. And part of the reason that I’ve been going to these sessions, and that I hear from the other elders and preachers that are at these sessions is that prior to having this kind of training as elders, when someone comes to us with something like an addiction or depression or a serious issue, we were we’re not adequately prepared to help them.

And so that’s the kind of things we would say. Let’s study the Bible together. Again, that’s a good thing to say and a good thing to do, but that doesn’t necessarily help someone that’s got a severe issue. So let’s look at take a look at some Bible characters that and determine if we can see if they were depressed and how they dealt with it and how that might help us. So, up front, let me just say the Bible does not diagnose depression. Nor does it give a give us a prescription for what to do about it. However, I think we can look at some characters in the Bible ha who had good reason to be depressed, who exhibited some of the characteristics of depression that I’ve shared with you, and identify what they did to help get themselves out of that situation that maybe can help some of us.

2. Cain, Moses and Jonah

So, what I don’t want to have happen is what I have to say today come across like Job’s friends. You know, some of the same old thing that doesn’t work backed up by the Bible, which was kind of Job’s friend’s approach, or a prescription that if you don’t do these things, it doesn’t mean you’re a good Christian. That’s not the goal of today. So it’s really just that’s just those kind of things really just add to someone’s depression. So the first person we’re gonna take a look at is Cain. So, Genesis 4, 6 through 7. So the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door, and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.

So, was Cain depressed? I don’t know. I don’t know that I can say that definitively, but he certainly exhibited some of the signs that we’ve talked about. He was angry at God. And his anger, and again, as we said, anger turned inward is a symptom of a characteristic of depression. And anger is especially evidence in depression among men, among young people, and among the elderly. interestingly enough. His countenance had fallen, and he was homicidal. So I think he certainly exhibited some of the signs of what we would call a depressed person. You’re probably going to be surprised by some of these names. How about Moses? So I’m not going to read verses 10 through 16, but this is when the people came to Moses and were complaining about the lack of food while they were wandering in the wilderness.

And Moses, and the Lord was angry, and Moses was displeased. And in fact, the New American Standard says he sank down. So Moses shows, he evidences his anger. He says to God, Why have you been so hard on your servant? You have laid the burden of all this people on me. I didn’t conceive all these people. I didn’t bring them forth. Why are you asking me to carry them like a nurse carries an infant? Where am I to get food for them? They weep before me, saying, Give us meat. I am not able to carry all this people. It’s too burdensome for me. If you’re going to deal with me like this, just kill me. Do not let me see my wretchedness. Is he suicidal? I don’t know, but he certainly is telling God that’s one way to help him get out of this situation.

And then, of course, starting in verse 16, God does bring him some help. He says in verse 16, gather 70 of the men of the elders of Israel, bring them to the tabernacle. I’m going to come and talk to you, and I’m going to help you. They’re going to share your burden. So God is telling Moses, You’re not in this alone. I’m going to help share this burden among the elders of Israel, so you’re not the only one dealing with the people. And of course, then he goes on to tell them that they’re going to have so much food that it’s going to be coming out of their nostrils. So God gives them help. So what can we learn from this? First of all, sometimes we can feel alone when we’re carrying too much burden, too much of our own burdens.

And so we need to maybe look to others to help spread that, those bur the burdens around. And we know that there’s scriptures in the Bible that talk about sharing one another’s burdens.

You know, dealing with the things that the congregation needs help with. So, but again, God reminded Moses of his power. He reminded Moses that he was in charge and that he would deal with it. So next person we’re going to look at is Jonah. So we know we’re most of us are aware that Jonah’s mission was to preach repentance to the nation of Nineveh. These were his enemies. He was very well aware of God’s loving kindness, graciousness, and compassion, but he was not willing to share that with the people from Nineveh. So he was angry with God. He prayed, Take my life, for death is better to me than life. And we know that God blessed him with the plant and then took it away.

And if you’re familiar with the heat of Israel, which I am not firsthand, but I’ve been told shade is a real blessing. So Jonah, of course, was upset when that guy taken away. He became faint and again begged with God to let him die. And he explained to God that he had a good reason to be angry even to death. So he was completely absorbed in his anger and had no compassion on these people, which God had told him was his mission to go preach to them. So the lesson for us is we have to be anger is a powerful emotion, and we have to be careful about how that exhibits itself in our in our personalities. And that can anger can result from any number of situations.

3. Elijah, David, Job and Jesus

It could be from an unfaithful spouse, it could be from a person who enticed a spouse, it could be from you know events that we feel have given we feel we’ve been served some great injustice, any number of things. So, and the other lesson we can learn from Juno from Jonah is not to take our own vengeance, but leave room for the vengeance of God. Romans 12, verse 9 talks about that. That it’s not upon us to avenge wrongs done upon our upon us. And also to give a blessing when your enemy deserves curses and death, which is challenging. So that’s what I think we can learn from Jonah. What about Elijah? So Elijah in 1 Kings 19 had just come down from the mountaintop where he had defeated the prophets of Baal.

450 prophets, all put to death. And God had showed his power over nature, his power over Baal, and had also effectively ruined the religion of Jezebel. And Jezebel wanted Elijah’s life. So Elijah sat under a juniper tree in the wilderness and requested to God, here’s his prayer, O Lord, take my life. So now we’ve seen three biblical characters who have said to God, please kill me because I can’t deal with this by myself. Are they depressed? I don’t know, but again, that’s a sign of someone who possibly could be. So God gave it, gave him help, sent him an angel, they gave him food and drink, and after he slept, he sent him on a mission. But Elijah went into a cave hiding. And when God asked him what he was doing there, he said, They have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, killed your prophets, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.

I think that’s a pretty good reason to hide in a cave. That’s I think it’s a pretty good reason to be depressed. So, what did God do for him? He returned him to his mission. He had him anoint Hazael, king over Aram. He had him anoint Jehu over Israel, he had him anoint Elisha as a prophet to take his place, and he reminded him that there were 7,000 in Israel who had not bent their knee to Baal, essentially telling him, You are not alone. I’m aware of your situation, Jonah, you’re not alone. And I am in charge, and I’m aware of your situation. And so I think so. The lesson for us, I think, is sometimes we can feel, sometimes our situation can cloud our minds as to what our mission is in life.

And we there was a woman who was spoken of at the at the meeting in May that had two children and one young children, one of them was you know, accidentally killed. And she got so overcome with her grief that she ceased being a mother to her child who was living until she came to her senses and realized okay, I’ve got to get through this. I’ve got another child who’s depending upon me as her mother, and I need to I need to, you know, work with that. So again, we can be we can become so overcome with grief and depression that sometimes we forget what our mission is. so that’s what God did with Elijah, sent him back on his mission and reminded him of who he was and why he was here.

What about David? If anybody had a reason to be depressed, it was David. Umijah had been faithful, but David had despised the word of the Lord, the Bible says, in relation to his sin regarding Bathsheba and Uriah. And of course, the consequences to him were s were severe. The sword would never depart from his house, evil would arise from his own old house, his own house, his youngest child would die, his other children would have issues and would die. Absalom, you know, a Amnon raped Tamar, Absalon, her brother, killed Amnon, and then of course we know Absalom was killed by Joab, the leader of David’s army, which caused David, you know, inconsolable grief. He was wailing, Oh, Absalom, my son, Absalon, my son, despite everything Absalom had done to him.

I can’t imagine the grief associated with losing a child. And that’s one of the things we talked about yesterday. Wilson Adams, who’s the author of the book that the two books we’ve been using on Wednesday nights, was there yesterday and talked about actually it was another man that was there with him that talked about having lost a child and the grief that caused in his life. And so and then David went through the face the same thing. And we talked a little bit about this in Bible class in the auditorium this morning, how you know, David so you can imagine David’s feelings where he has great grief piled upon by great guilt because this is his doing. but as we said in class this morning, David has had set his heart to do all of the will of God, and so that needs to be our response as well.

We need to set our heart to do all the will of God. Sometimes it is the guilt of sin that causes us to be down or depressed. In that case, we need to repent of those sins and turn and change our lives accordingly. of course, Job, and probably somebody you would expect to have mentioned here, one of the oldest books in the Bible, and what can we learn from Job? leaning learning to lean on the Lord in spite of horrible, terrible circumstances. And Sean led some very good songs that fit right in with some of these things. So what can we say about Job? He lost everything. He lost all of his wealth, he lost his ten children, he lost his health, he was in great pain.

He wished he had never been born. It was so bad. And then his friends came along. And you know, we give his we give his friends a bad rap a lot of times because they, you know, it’s kind of a court of inquiry and they questioned his faithfulness and things like that. But you know what? They came there and they sat for seven days with him. They tore their robes and they wept. They were so upset to see their friend in this situation that and how many of us would do that, or how many friends do we know that would come and sit with us for seven days and just be there for us? There’s a lot to be said for that. So, yes, they did investigate him, yes, they questioned his integrity.

He’s he called them sorry comforters and a and accused them many times of insulting him. His wife also said, Why don’t you curse God and die? And again, we give her a bad rap for saying that kind of thing. But you know, maybe she, seeing her husband who she loved in this situation, felt like maybe we sometimes feel about our loved ones who are undergoing terrible pain. Haven’t you ever prayed to God? Please put them out of their misery? And maybe that maybe that’s what she was doing. but so th the lesson we can learn from Job, of course, is that we never lose our faith in God. We know that God is aware and God is faithful, and of course we know that Job every had everything restored to him.

Of course, he didn’t have his ten children that had died restored to him, and after I heard some of the people yesterday that had lost children, you never get over that. but he did believe that God was faithful, and he did believe that he knew that God was aware of his situation. And there’s others that we won’t go into great depth about. So Saul, you know, when he was, when David was anointed king in his place, it says that the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit came upon him. And his servants were aware of that, offered music to help him. Ahab, when Naboth refused to give him his vineyard, says he was vexed, he laid on his bend, turned his face to the wall, wouldn’t eat, was solid, other characteristics of possible depression.

Judas, of course, went, was so distraught by what he had done, he had committed suicide. And even Peter and Paul, if you look at some of these verses, dealt with issues of sadness and depression at various times. And there, and what they did was they went back on their mission. They went back to preaching and teaching and doing what God had put them on the earth to do. So the last person we’ll look at is Jesus.

He experienced great grief over the rejection of the people of the grace of God. He said to God, How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not.

And three of his most trusted disciples to keep watch, and what do they do? Fall asleep. And he was grieved and distressed to the point of death. He prayed, of course, if not, if not, if possible, let this cup pass from me, but not my will but thine be done. So he was, and as we know, he sweat drops as of blood. So Jesus had, and then, of course, so he had every reason to be depressed by the things he was going through. On the cross, he knew that God had forsaken him. And but he, above all things, learned obedience from the things that he suffered. He realized why these things were happening and knew God had a purpose for him. And maybe we can learn the same thing through things that we experience.

4. What Can We Learn From These Bible Characters

So, what can we learn from these Bible characters? First of all, sadness and depression are just a normal part of life. Everybody goes through periods of sadness and depression. It’s, you know, we’re not promised walk down easy street when we become Christians. And we saw varying react various reactions to people that experienced some of these issues. Some were angry, some were sad by their own sin or saddened, even though they knew they had done nothing wrong. Some wished for death, some prayed for God to help, and that help was delayed. I’m sure we’ve experienced that situation, hoping for faster answers to our prayer sometimes. And some lost focus on their mission and were called back to work. And then there were also varying solutions. But the end result was that continued loyalty and dependence upon God was always desired.

5. How Can You Help Yourself

So, how can you help yourself? From a physical perspective, don’t expect too much of yourself. Don’t take on more than you can handle. And if you find yourself in a situation where you’ve got too much on your plate, you’ve got too big of a burden to bear, you’ve got 200 people here who are willing to help with that and take some of that load off of you. Also, just things like getting exercise, eating a proper diet, getting the proper rest, letting others help you, sharing your burdens with others, and letting people know of the situation in your life. And again, if this is something, if you’re going through periods of this that have gone on for more than two weeks, and you feel hopeless and helpless, that’s when you really need professional help.

So and then as far as biblically, how can we help ourselves? hang on.

So, sorts of slides are missing here, so bear with me. We have to accept that discouragement and frustration are part of life. It’s not wrong to be down. Paul even said in 2 Corinthians 4, we are hard-pressed on every side but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair. So he was struggling, but he did not give up on God. and sometimes, as I mentioned, it may be sin that is causing the guilt that’s leading us to be down or depressed. And at first John 1 verse 9 says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. And then realizing being content in the situation in whatever our situation is, and realizing that we can do everything through God who strengthens us.

So when you’re feeling sad, if you’re feeling down, if you need some verses to look to help you out of this, if it’s not a situation where it’s, you know, a severe case of depression, there’s a lot of verses you can go to. Wow. So I guess I should have probably done a dry run with this before I put it up here. So let me share these verses with you.

Actually, it must be something wrong with the computer. It couldn’t be me. So Philippians 4, verse 8. Most of us know this verse. Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are pure, whatever things are excellent. Think on these things. That’s a good verse.

Deuteronomy 31, verse 8. The Lord Himself goes before you and will be with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. There’s a lot of good verses in Psalms. Psalms 34, 17. The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them. He delivers them from all their troubles.

6. How Can You Help Others

And 1 Peter 5, 6 and 7. Humble yourself, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time and cast all your anxiety upon him because he cares for you. So there’s God has given us plenty of help in His Word, and places we can go to help us lift ourselves out of periods of sadness and depression. So how can you help others? There’s really three things that you can provide to others: warmth, empathy, and respect. So just letting people know that you care for them and respecting their situation, and as I mentioned twice already, there’s no place for judging other people or what their situation is without knowing all the facts. So that’s it for this morning. Again, next Sunday at 3 30, we’ll have a more of a workshop open discussion about other things relating to depression.

Conclusion

So can we can we help anybody this morning? Are you here this morning and you know we’ve had we had one person this past week, and we rejoice with Emily who was baptized into the Lord. So if you know what the Bible teaches as far as repenting of your sins, confessing your sins, and being and submitting yourself to baptism, we can help you with that this morning. If on the other hand you need prayers of the congregation and you’d like to make that public, any way we can help, if you come to the front, we’ll be happy to assist you.