"This eternal saint of earth shall gather o'er the shore, this morning Christ shall rise and the glory his resurrection share, when his chosen ones shall gather by their home beyond the skies, and the rose called up yonder, I'll be there for the master from the dawn till setting sun, let us talk of all his wondrous love and care, then when all..."
Let's sing everybody. Brothers and sisters, please open yourself for the word of prayer.
Turn to page number 43. Page number 43. We're marching to Zion.
Page number 43. Sing it out on the first.
"Come, we, the court, and thus surround the three,
To Zion, upward to Zion, for the city of God is to sing,
Who never may speak their joy abroad,
To Zion, the city of God, the heavy foils,
Or walks, or walks, three, to Zion, to Zion,
The city of God, the bound, and as upward to Zion,
To Zion, to Zion, to Zion."
So sing everybody at this time, we will have our announcements.
Good morning, everyone.
The verse of the week is 2 Timothy 1, 7.
2 Timothy 1, 7.
"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear,
Power, and of love, and a sound."
2 Timothy 1, verse 7.
Service times are 10.30 this morning,
3.30 this afternoon.
6.30 Wednesday evening Bible study.
So many times will be 1 p.m. today.
And on Saturdays, they are at 12.30.
Salvation report has been 9 for January,
which is still a 9 for the year so far.
All right, upcoming events.
Still coming to the tail end.
You might only have a few more days,
so you've been keeping up.
But the New Testament Challenge is about to conclude,
so I'm really hoping that through it,
that's a great way to start the year off
is to work on your Bible reading.
Next event coming up faster and faster
is February 14th will be
the Married Couples Sweetheart Banquet,
which will be at 4 p.m.
Food Fellowship and Games,
just like we've had many years before.
Always a fun time,
so hope to see the couples out at that event.
All right, kids, practice this.
I don't know if we have the judge here currently,
but you will receive a piece of candy at some point
if you can memorize John 10 verse 27.
John 10 verse 27.
"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them.
They follow me."
John 10 verse 27.
All right, tithing information down.
Rules are the same.
If you didn't have a chance,
maybe just let Pastor Thompson know.
Happy birthday.
It was his birthday just very recently.
So into that.
If you have any other prayer requests,
please let me know.
Or the Thompsons know.
We'll get it added into the next bulletin.
But with that, let's turn to the Lord in prayer.
All right, I want to take your Bibles
and turn to Psalm chapter number 11.
Or your blue Psalm book.
I'm going to turn to Psalm chapter number 11.
Psalm chapter number 11.
"In the Lord put I my trust."
We'll sing it out on the first.
"In the Lord put I my trust."
I'll say unto my soul,
"Flee as a bird to your mountain,
for lo the wicked bend their bow.
They make ready their arrow upon a string
that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart.
If the foundations be destroyed,
what can the righteous do?
The Lord is in his holy temple.
The Lord's throne is in heaven.
His eyes behold his own children of matches.
They can tell his righteousness is countenance."
Sing everybody, this time we will have our offering.
"Lord, whatever we may see small is always large to you, Lord.
Whatever we see as large makes it small in the eyes of the Lord."
Turn to 2 Timothy chapter 1.
That will be our text this morning.
2 Timothy chapter 1.
And as always here at our church we read the entire chapter before the preaching.
2 Timothy chapter 1, the Bible reads,
"Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,
according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus.
To Timothy, dearly beloved son,
grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience,
that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day,
greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy.
When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee,
which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice,
and I am persuaded that in thee also, wherefore I put thee in remembrance,
that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, power, and love, and of a sound mind.
Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner.
But be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God,
who hath saved us, and called us within holy calling, not according to our works,
but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ,
who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,
whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.
For the witch cause I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed,
for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus,
that good thing which was committed unto thee by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.
This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me, of whom are phygellous and homogenes.
The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus, for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain.
But when he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently, and found me.
The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day.
And in how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus, thou knowest very well.
Brother Daniel, could you please pray for the preaching?
Alright, so we're in 2nd Timothy, chapter number one.
If you want to go ahead and look at verse number seven, where the Bible reads,
"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."
And the title of my sermon this morning is "Mental Illness."
And the reason why I wanted to preach this sermon this morning is because this week I listened to a podcast.
It was kind of talking about different issues within the medical field.
And one of the things that they talked about was how the psychiatric industry, basically they kind of made up this lie
that depression is caused by a certain chemical, I believe it's serotonin.
And if you have elevated levels of serotonin in your body then it causes depression.
But actually apparently it's not true at all and they just made that up.
And it's actually not caused by that at all.
But that just kind of got me thinking about what does the Bible say about mental illness, depression, about these different things.
And so I just wanted to preach a sermon about it this morning because I don't think we've had a sermon about that that I could think of.
So, you know, I thought it was a great topic.
But we can see here the Bible says that God has not given the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
So God wants to give us a sound mind. Amen.
But I go ahead and turn to Ezra chapter number nine.
Ezra chapter number nine. If I could get a glass of water, that would be fantastic.
But there's lots of different types of mental illness out there.
And we're going to go through kind of the several different types.
And I'm sure the psychiatric industry, there's like all huge amounts of different types.
But this is basically from my position.
This is from my opinion of what is going on with psychiatrics and mental illness and whatnot.
And the first one I wanted to go over is something that's not a mental illness.
But sometimes people do kind of refer to it as a mental illness.
And that would basically be depression.
Now, depression, it can be a normal emotion that people go through.
But there's many people in this world that would be like,
"Okay, well, if somebody is depressed, that means that there's something wrong with them."
And we need to medicate them, we need to give them pills, we need to give them SSRI so that they're no longer depressed.
But the thing about it is that depression is a normal emotion that people can go through with certain things come to pass.
I mean, there's certain situations, there's certain things that can happen to people that can cause people to be depressed.
And when you read through the Bible, you find people that are in a state of depression throughout.
And the words that the Bible would oftentimes use, because obviously the Bible doesn't use the word "depression," at least that I know of.
I can't remember that word ever being used. But it will use the word "heaviness," okay?
And this is the first time in the Bible the words are used. Here's in Ezra chapter number 9.
It says in verse number 5, it says, "And at the evening sacrifice I rose up from my heaviness,
and having rent my garment and my mantle, I fell upon my knees and spread out my hands unto the Lord my God."
Now here, you know, in Ezra chapter number 9, kind of the context is that basically the princes of the tribe of Judah,
they had intermingled with the heathen, right? They had married heathen wives, and so he was really upset about this, right?
And it says that he rose up from my heaviness, having rent my garment and mantle. And so, you know, this is something that is causing him to be depressed where he's renting his clothes, right?
And that's something that we oftentimes see in the Old Testament, is when people are depressed, really upset about something, what do they do? They rent their clothes.
And, you know, for whatever reason, I guess it's a cultural thing, you don't see too many people, you know, no, they just tear their shirt or whatever.
But it was something that's a feature of, you know, ancient times, I guess, you know, then also, you know, get sackcloth and, you know, put ashes on their head, you know, we don't see people doing that today, you know.
At least, at least not that I've seen, you know, maybe we can travel to Afghanistan or some other place in the world and they would do that still, I don't know.
But nonetheless, we see that this word heaviness is used here. And in Proverbs 12-25, it says, "Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop, but a good word maketh it glad."
And so, you know, this heaviness, it's like it's making your heart stoop.
And we've probably all felt like this at certain times in our lives. We're just like, you know, you kind of feel like stooped over or maybe you feel like somebody just punched you in the gut or something like that, you know.
And again, you know, this is a, this is a normal emotion. This is in no way a mental illness, okay, that needs to be treated, that has to have some doctor come in with psychiatric medicine.
And this is something that, you know, people, you know, fall into, you know, they basically, they'll get addicted to these like SSRIs because some psychologists told them that, oh, you're depressed, you're sad, you need to get on these pills.
You know, maybe they just need to work through whatever issue, whatever problems they've gone through.
Maybe they just need to work through it and then they're going to come out on the other end of that, a better person, a stronger person, right?
I mean, we wouldn't, we wouldn't come to, we wouldn't come up to Job and be like, Job, why are you depressed?
We need to put you on, we need to medicate you, Job, because you have a, you have a mental problem, you have a mental issue, you know, you're sad, you're a little too sad for our liking.
We're going to go ahead and medicate you.
We're going to put you on SSRIs.
I mean, that would be insane, right?
We'd be like, okay, no, you know, there's nothing wrong with Job, per se.
You know, he doesn't have a mental illness.
He doesn't have a mental problem.
He just lost all of his children, and he just lost all of his wealth, and he has major health issues, right?
Not necessarily mental health issues, but other health issues, right?
So that's why he's sad, okay?
That's why he, that's why he seems to be depressed.
That's why, you know, he's not saying anything for, I think, what was it, three days or seven days where he didn't say a single word?
Nobody said anything to him, which is, you know, sometimes that's the best thing to say when somebody's sad and depressed.
It's nothing, right?
But anyway, so again, you know, depression is a normal, is a normal emotion that people go through, right?
Now, we don't want to be depressed forever.
We don't see Joe being depressed forever, right?
We see him coming out the other side, you know, God validates him.
He's like, "Hey, you know, all these other idiots, they're wrong. They're accusing him of doing bad things. They're wrong." Job is correct. Job's going to pray for them, and he's going to make a sacrifice for them so I don't destroy them. So Job's right.
And then, you know, he has, I believe he has ten more children, and then his wealth is even bigger, or even more. And so he comes out of the other side of his tragedy, you know, he comes out of the other side strong.
Okay. And so, you know, that's what our attitude should be as well, is that, you know, being depressed for a time is okay. You know, sometimes, you know, people go through tough events in life, and they need to be able to go through those things and heal, right?
And let's see, Proverbs 13, 12 says, "Hope deferred, makeeth the heart sick; but when the desire cometh, it is the tree of life."
So sometimes that hope is deferred, and there are times in your life where you just kind of have no hope, but when the desire comes, it is the tree of life.
So there's something that's going to come along and it's going to kind of cheer you up, okay?
And one other thing I wanted to mention about depression is that a lot of times Christians will have this attitude of, well, if you're depressed, that just means you're not being spiritual enough.
That just means you're not reading enough Bible, that just means you're not praying enough, that means you're just not singing enough hymns, that means you're not going to church enough.
But that's not always necessarily the case, because somebody could be a completely spiritual person, they could be doing all the correct spiritual things, they could be a well-rounded spiritual person, and yet still they could go through something that would cause them to be depressed.
And again, I would say that Job would be the example to point to in a situation where you don't really go through the book of Job, and you're like, "Well, Job is just really happy to be in this situation.
He's just real happy. He's chipper. He's joyful. He's got the joy of the Lord going for him. Nothing's holding him down. Nothing's holding him back. He's just great."
You don't read the book of Job. When you read the book of Job, you don't get that from Job. He's upset. He's sad.
I just wanted to point that out that we don't want to have a holier-than-now attitude towards somebody who is depressed
and say, "Well, it's just because they're not spiritual enough. If they're spiritual as I am spiritual, they wouldn't be depressed."
Because that's not true. What if you go through something horrible and then you feel depressed?
You wouldn't want somebody to come along and be like, "Well, you just need to be more spiritual."
Because sometimes being depressed is not a spiritual problem.
And we're going to go later to where we're going to see when it is a spiritual problem.
But sometimes it's not. Maybe they don't need more prayer. Maybe they don't need more Bible reading.
Maybe they don't need church to lift them up. Maybe they need friendship.
Because if somebody doesn't have any friends in this world or whatever, they're probably going to be a depressed person.
And so not every single time when somebody is depressed, when somebody is upset, is it necessarily a spiritual problem?
Sometimes there can be other issues going on. Somebody can be a completely spiritual person, well-rounded spiritually, but they're still depressed.
Why? Because there's other issues, there's other problems that are going on in their life.
And so we don't want to just put it all into one issue where it's like, well, everything is a spiritual problem.
Not everything is a spiritual problem. If somebody is depressed because they lost a loved one,
or if things are not going well in their lives, you can't always just chalk that up to spirituality.
So I just wanted to mention that real quick, but go ahead and turn to Ecclesiastes chapter number two.
Because there are situations where it is clear that it is a spiritual problem.
Because there can be situations out there where somebody's life hasn't had any issues.
They haven't had a loved one die, and their life is going well.
Their marriage is going good, and their finances are going good, and their relationships are going good.
You look at their life, and everything in their life looks great.
There's nothing wrong with it. But for whatever reason, this person is still depressed.
And you say, "Well, that doesn't sound realistic. That doesn't sound real.
I mean, how could somebody that they have money, they have land, they've got a wife, they've got children,
they've got the relationships, all those people are good, and great, and solid, and it looks like they have no issues at all.
How could somebody be like that, be depressed? Well, we're in Ecclesiastes chapter number two.
I'm going to show you an example of somebody that had everything, but yet they were still depressed.
It says in Ecclesiastes two, verse number one, it says, "I said in my heart, go to now,
I will prove thee with mirth. Therefore, therefore, enjoy pleasure, and behold, this also is vanity.
I said, of laughter it is mad, and of mirth what do with it? I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine,
yet acquaintingly in heart with wisdom, and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the sons of men,
which they should do unto the heaven all the days of their life. I made me great works, excuse me.
I builded me houses, I planted me vineyards, I made me gardens, and orchards, and planted trees in them of all kinds of fruit.
I made me pools of water to water therewith, the wood that bringeth forth trees.
I got me servants, and maidens, and had servants born in mine house.
I also had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me.
I gathered me also silver and gold, and the treasure of kings, and of the province.
I got me men singers, and women singers, and the delight of the sons of men as musical instruments, and that of all sorts.
So I was great and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem.
Also my wisdom remained with me, and whatsoever mine eyes desired, I kept not from them.
I withheld not my heart from any joy, from my heart rejoiced in my labor, and this was my portion of all my labor.
Then I took on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do.
And behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.
And I turned myself to behold wisdom and madness and folly, for what came the man do that cometh after the king,
even that which hath been already done? Then I saw that wisdom exceleth folly.
As for as light exalted darkness, the wise man's eyes are in the head, but the fool walketh in darkness,
and myself perceived also that one even happeneth to them all.
Then I said in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me.
And why was it then more wise? Then I said in my heart that this is also vanity.
For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool forever.
Seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten.
And how died the wise man? As the fool.
For I hated life because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me.
For all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
So notice that. I mean after he had all of this great possession.
He had all these vineyards. He had all these houses and buildings.
And he had all these maidens and men's servants and men's singers.
And all these different fruits. He had all of this possession.
Everything was going great for him. Everything was going perfect for him.
And then we get down to the end. And he says, "Hey, therefore I hated life."
Does this guy sound happy? Does this guy sound like he's chipper?
He's just, "Ah, I love it." No. When somebody says, "I hate life."
What kind of observation would you make about that person?
They're depressed. This person is a depressed person.
I mean if your co-worker just came up to you and said, "Ah, I hate life."
It's like, "Alright, well, obviously this person is not happy."
But it's perplexing. This guy has everything. He has it all.
Why is he depressed? Why does he hate life?
Here's why somebody that has everything would hate life.
It's because basically this is a spiritual problem.
And without God, without serving God with your life, guess what?
Life is vanity. Life is vexation of spirit. It's pointless.
And anybody who lives their life without serving God has a pointless life.
And it doesn't matter what they're doing with their life,
if they're not serving God in any way, they do have a pointless life.
I mean, you think about these different people like Elon Musk.
He's got everything. He's got even more than Solomon had.
He's able to shoot rocket ships up into space. How cool is that?
You're like, "Oh yeah, I shot rocket ships up into space.
I put all these satellites up there and whatnot."
But at the end of the day, his life is pointless. Why?
Because he's not serving God with his life.
And really, that's largely the point of the book of Ecclesiastes
is to point out the fact that a life that is not built around serving God
is not a life that's well lived.
And this is something that we observe in the world today
is that people, they have everything it seems like, but yet they're depressed.
And the reason why is because they don't have that fulfillment of serving God.
And at the end of the day, when Elon Musk dies, who's going to get all of his wealth?
Are they going to do a good job with him?
Not with him. Are they going to do a good job with all of his wealth?
Are they going to squander it? What's going to happen to it?
And I heard this quote, I can't remember who did the quote or whatever,
but the quote said at some point every grave goes unvisited,
which means it doesn't matter what you did in this life.
You could have been the greatest king there ever was,
you could have been the greatest scientist there ever was,
you could have been the greatest celebrity there ever was,
or you could have been a peasant.
At some point in the future, your gravesite is going to go unvisited,
and that's a sobering truth that it's like if you don't serve God with your life,
your life is pointless. And I think when people realize that,
because a lot of people that have everything, they come to this realization that their life is pointless.
Even though they have all this stuff, it's still not bringing that true joy to their life.
Even though they have everything that a man could ever desire, they still desire more.
And at some point they're going to die, and they're not going to have those desires anymore.
At some point they realize this, and what happens is they become depressed.
And then they hate them, right?
And so all this will point out the fact that there are situations out there where somebody is just depressed when really they shouldn't be depressed.
And what's causing this depression?
It's basically it's the lack of serving God.
Because look, if somebody does serve God with their life, it doesn't matter that their grave site goes unvisited,
because they're not going to be in that grave forever anyway.
They're going to come up out of the grave and they're going to have a bunch of rewards from God.
And so a life that is lived for Christ is not vanity, it is not vexation of spirit.
Why? Because it has eternal rewards for it.
And so saved people should never suffer from this kind of depression even though everything's fine.
Even though everything in their life is fine, they're still oppressed.
Christians should not suffer from that. Why?
Because Christians should be serving God with their lives, and that would prevent that from happening.
Now, I believe it's very much possible for somebody that is saved to have that kind of depression.
I mean, we see here Solomon. I mean, does somebody think Solomon was just unsaved?
I don't believe that for one second. I think he was completely saved.
But yet, we see here him saying, "I hated life." Why?
Well, because when he was doing this experiment, basically, he was like, "I'm going to do an experiment.
I'm going to see what the sons of man should do under the earth."
He does this experiment. Obviously, he's not serving God during this time. Why?
Because in Ecclesiastes 12-13, it says, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.
Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."
And in chapter number two, he's not doing this. He's just doing whatever is going to feel good to his heart.
Whatever he thinks is going to make him feel good, he's going to try it out.
He's going to try having great possessions. He's going to try having all these different musical instruments.
And he's trying all these different things to bring joy to him.
And we see that it does bring joy for a short time, but at the end of the day, he hates life.
And so serving God is basically the antidote towards this.
You could call it a mental illness. I wouldn't really call it a mental illness.
It's just a normal human emotion that people have.
But serving God is the solution for this particular form of depression, I should say.
So the Bible does talk a lot about depression.
The Bible would call it happiness or sorrow of heart.
And so there's different types of it, and there's different solutions.
And with certain types of depression, maybe you just need to get through whatever tragedy has happened to you.
And that's going to take time.
Other forms of depression, maybe you need to just make more friends.
The Bible says, "A man who hath friends must show himself friendly."
And maybe you just need to serve God with your life, right?
And so there's different types of depressions, and there's different solutions for those types of depressions.
But I don't think pills is one of them.
I don't think a Christian should be taking pills for their depression.
And this is something that is extremely common, is for people to be taking pills.
They'll get a psychiatrist to say, "You need to take pills in order for you to stop being sad."
And I don't believe that's true.
I believe that somebody can live a fulfilled life without taking pills.
They just might need to tweak some things in their life.
Or they just need time to be able to process some sort of a tragic loss.
But the next one that I want to get into, we're going to get into the actual real mental illnesses.
And I go ahead and turn to Daniel chapter number four.
And the next one is basically when somebody just kind of loses their mind for one reason or another.
I guess you could call it like psychosis, or I don't know what the scientific term for it is.
But it's basically when somebody loses their mind, when they're not in their right mind anymore.
We're like, "Hey, this person's crazy."
And we see an example of this here in Daniel chapter number four.
Look at verse number 31. It says, "While the word was in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven saying,
'O King Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken, the kingdom is departed from thee,
and they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field,
and they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee,
until thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.'
The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar, and he was driven from men,
and did eat grass as an oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven,
till his hairs were grown like eagle feathers, and his nails like bird claws.
And at the end of the days, Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven,
and my understanding was returned unto me, and I blessed the Most High,
and I praised and honored him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion,
and his kingdom is from generation to generation.
So we see here that Nebuchadnezzar loses his mind.
And, you know, he loses the mind to the point where he's running out and eating grass.
I mean, how many of you have ever just eaten some grass?
I didn't expect to see that many hands.
Oh, yeah. Okay, well, anyway, so, I mean, he's out there, he's out there eating grass, right?
Like an oxen, and his hair is growing out, and his nails are like eagle feathers.
He's just running around there in the wilderness. I mean, this would be a crazy sight, right?
This is King Nebuchadnezzar. This is like the ruler of the known world, right?
And he's just out there going nuts. And it's like, that would be a sight to behold.
This is something that can happen, right? And look, there's various different ways and reasons that this can happen.
This is obviously a punishment from God, right?
So, I mean, we need to realize that God, he could just take away your sanity if you wanted to.
And that would be a severe punishment in my mind. Whoa.
You know, Nebuchadnezzar, you know, eventually he got his sanity back after seven years.
You know, I don't know how you survive for seven years, you know, by eating grass.
You know, that's just crazy to me.
But he survives somehow and he gets his mind back.
But, you know, maybe if God decides to punish somebody that way by taking their sanity,
maybe they just don't get their mind back.
And they're just like that for the rest of their life, you know.
But again, there's very different ways that this can happen to people.
The example we have here is God literally taking their sanity away from them.
But there's other ways people can lose their sanity.
And a real common way for people to lose their sanity is by taking drugs, okay?
There's all kinds of different drugs out there.
And these different drugs, they can cause people to lose their mind, right?
You know, some people, they can be a drug addict their whole life, you know.
And they only lose their mind, you know, while they're high, right?
They're high, they're going nuts or whatever.
When they come down off the high, they become somewhat normal again, you know.
They have their faculties, they can function or whatever.
There are some people that it doesn't break their mind per se.
But there's other people that they take drugs and their mind does break.
And basically their mind is broken for the rest of their life.
They're never the same again, ever.
Like they, you know, they've lost it crazy from that point out, you know.
And there's going to be varying degrees of that.
But all that to say this is that you shouldn't be doing drugs. Why?
Because drugs can cause you to have a major mental illness.
It can cause you to be crazy. It can cause you to lose your mind.
And, you know, a lot of different drugs can make this happen.
I'm pretty sure, you know, there are certain people that smoke pot and their mind breaks.
And they've lost their mind from that point forward.
You know, why? Because they decided to smoke pot.
You know, these mind-altering drugs are something to be avoided.
The Bible does talk about this in Proverbs 23-31.
It says, "Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it moveeth itself aright.
At the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. Thine eyes shall behold strange women, thine heart shall utter perverse things.
Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of the mast.
They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not. When I wake, I shall seek it yet again.
And so, of course, the Bible here is talking about drinking alcohol and how it takes somebody out of the right mind, right?
It causes them to not be thinking properly and not have decision-making properly, and they're just uttering perverse things.
Basically, they've kind of lost their mind.
You know, and this is, you know, the Bible doesn't really talk about, you know, drugs per se at all.
Basically, it just talks about alcohol, which I would say is kind of a form of drug.
But, you know, the same principle applies to all the other drugs out there is, you know, they're mind-altering drugs.
Because, you know, obviously that's one of the effects of alcohol.
It does affect your mind, right?
It causes your judgment to go away and your, you know, different reflexes and faculties and whatnot to go away, your inhibition to go away.
But, you know, that's somewhat similar to what other drugs do, is that they take away your ability to think.
And, you know, obviously these other drugs will probably do it to a much greater degree and a much more severe degree.
Which is why you should definitely avoid them, right?
Because they will cause you to lose your mind.
You know, and, you know, these other harder drugs and whatnot, they could easily make you lose your mind permanently, right?
And, you know, so you definitely don't want to allow that to happen.
So, you know, there could be a punishment from God to cause you to lose your mind, to have some sort of a psychosis.
And it could be drugs, right?
And also, you know, it could be like, it could be some sort of a medical drug as well.
You know, somebody is taking like anti-psychotics or something, you know.
But, you know, that's another subject that I kind of don't want to delve into too much.
But basically there's punishment from God and then there is drug use, okay?
Now go ahead and turn to Mark chapter number five.
And I also wanted to point out that this is something that could happen to anybody.
Even if somebody is saved, God could take away their sanity.
And even if somebody is saved, they could lose their sanity because they took drugs, okay?
And so this is something that even saved people need to watch out for, you know.
We don't want to be under the wrath of God to where He's going to take our mind away.
You know, we want to avoid that.
And also, you know, obviously just avoid drugs.
That's not going to be good for you.
But the next type of mental illness is basically demon possession.
And, you know, the world will have different types of names for this
and different diagnoses or whatever for demon possession.
You know, schizophrenia and different diagnoses that they have
and different excuses or whatever for why people are like this.
But this is, you know, this is a major category of mental illness
where people have multiple personalities, right?
And there's people who are trying to always explain why this is.
But if you just read the Bible and you believe the Bible, it's pretty obvious.
You know what's going on a lot of times.
And in Mark chapter number five, look at verse number one, it says,
"And they came over under the other side of the sea, under the country of the Gadareans.
And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs,
a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs,
and no man could bind him, no, not with chains,
because he was often times bound with fetters and chains,
and the chains had been plucked asunder by him,
and the fetters broken in pieces, neither could any man tame him,
and always night and day was he in the mountains and in the tombs crying,
and cutting himself with stones.
And so this guy, you know, he's got this abnormal strength,
he can't be bound with chains, and he's doing all this weird stuff.
He's hanging out in the tombs, he's cutting himself, he's crying.
It's like this guy is just disturbed, right?
And so, you know, what's going on with this guy?
Well, we're going to find out that he was possessed, basically he was possessed of devils.
And this is something that we observe today in our world.
You know, you hear these stories about somebody that just has this insane strength, you know,
and they're insane, right?
They have a personality disorder and they have, like, this insane strength.
And I've had interactions with people out soul winning where, you know,
I walk away from that interaction going, "That guy was demon possessed."
And I'm pretty sure other people have had similar occasions where they walk away from somebody
and they were like, "Okay, that guy was demon possessed."
You know, I don't remember who my partner was, but I was preaching the Gospel to this guy, you know,
and we were talking with him, and all of a sudden he just started talking to somebody else.
And, you know, he didn't have earphones on, he didn't have a phone in his hand,
he just started talking to somebody.
And we don't know who he was talking to, but he was like, "No, he's like,
they're preaching the Gospel to me right now. I can't, we can't do this right now."
And he's just like, he's not on the phone, no earbuds, nothing going on, you know.
No, he's just talking to somebody else.
And we kind of got his attention back, we're like, "Hey, so you want the free gift?"
But eventually we had to walk away from that conversation.
It's like, pretty sure that guy was demon possessed, because who was he talking to?
He's talking to his imaginary friend who's got horns or something, I don't know.
And here's the thing, demon possession is a real thing that happens.
Sometimes you get, you know, when you see like the Catholics or whoever, you know, they're doing these fake, what do they call it?
Exercise, oh yeah, we're going to exercise this guy, whatever.
You kind of look at that, you're like, you know, whatever.
But the reality is, is that people are demon possessed in this world, okay?
And we see an example of it here in the Bible.
Let's see, let's continue reading on.
I believe verse number six says, "But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshiped him,
and cried in loud voice and said, 'What have I to do with thee, thou son of the most high God?
I adjure thee by God that thou torment me not.' For he said unto him, 'Come thou out of the man, thou unclean spirit.'
And he asked him, 'What is thy name?' And he answered, saying, 'My name is Legion, for we are many.'"
So apparently this guy had multitudes of demons possessing him.
And we see in the Bible that there's multiple different times that people have multiple demons possessing them.
I believe Mary Magdalene had seven demons cast out of her.
And then there's the story of the guy that... I can't remember exactly how the story goes.
But basically he leaves his house, and then he returns to his house, and the house is swept, and then seven demons enter into him.
And so there's multiple stories in the Bible that are that way, where there's multiple demons involved.
And so this guy, his name is Legion because there's many.
Verse number 10, it says, "And besought him much, that he would not send him away out of the country.
Now there was there, nigh under the mountains, a great herd of swine feeding.
And the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.
And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out and entered into the swine.
And the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea.
And they were about two thousand and they were choked in the sea.
And they had fled, excuse me, and they that fed the swine, fled and told the city and in the country.
And they went out to see what it was that was done.
And they came and they come to Jesus and see him that was possessed with the devil.
And had the legion sitting and clothed and in his right mind.
And they were afraid.
And so we see here that basically after the demons are cast out of this guy, he's cured.
He's in his right mind, he's not crazy anymore, he's not doing these wild things, he's clothed.
So the cure for people to get rid of multiple personality syndrome I would say is basically for people to get saved.
Why? Because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world, that's why.
Because when somebody gets saved they have the Holy Ghost enter into them.
And I don't believe for one second that the Holy Ghost is going to be cohabitating with the demon.
That's insane. I don't believe for one second that somebody who's saved can ever be possessed with the devil.
That's just wrong. No.
And I had a guy years ago tell me that he got saved and then the next day after he got saved he was demon possessed.
And he was demon possessed for years and years and years until a bunch of guys at the church prayed over him all night or whatever and then the demon left or whatever.
But of course he was just simply unsaved. Maybe he was demon possessed, maybe he wasn't, I don't know.
But he certainly was not saved. Why? Well, again, because greater is he that is in you than he is in the world.
If you have the Holy Ghost residing within you, you don't have a devil within you.
I mean, that's just foolishness, this idea that a saved person can be possessed with a devil.
I don't believe that God will allow that to happen.
And even in the Old Testament, before we got the indwelling of the Holy Spirit,
he just saved people just being possessed with the devil.
I mean, even Saul, he had an evil spirit torment him, but guess what?
He wasn't possessed of that devil, right?
And the Bible doesn't even use the word devil in that story.
It just says an evil spirit to torment him, right?
And so he was not even possessed with the devil.
And so I don't even think in the Old Testament saved people could be possessed with the devil.
I don't think a saved person has ever been possessed with the devil.
Why? Because I don't think God would allow that to happen.
Why would he allow his children to be possessed by a devil?
That just doesn't make any sense to me.
But then you've got these weirdos that are claiming that the demons are mating with people.
It's like, what in the world?
So a devil can possess somebody, but then they can also mate.
What? Who came up with that stupid doctrine anyway?
That's another doctrine for another day.
I do want to kick the dog while I'm walking by though.
So there's demon possession.
It can cause people to do all kinds of weird, crazy, insane things.
And act in all kinds of weird, crazy ways.
And the world comes up with all kinds of different ways to explain what's going on.
There's always multiple personality syndrome.
And there's these people out there that just kind of happens to them.
But in reality though, it's explained by the Bible.
It's explained by the Bible what is going on.
And so that's kind of a multiple personality syndrome that is caused by demon possession.
And so the last point I have, or the last type of mental illness I have,
is basically somebody who is a psychopath.
And this one is also very clearly explained by the Bible.
This is not something where we have to sit around and wonder how did this happen?
How did this person get this way? What causes this? Are they born this way?
What is it that causes somebody to be a psychopath?
And what's a psychopath? It's basically somebody that has no conscience.
And of course, this particular is a subject we've gone over many times.
I don't want to dwell on it too long.
But I did want to cover it because it is a major category of mental illness.
And I would say it's probably the most dangerous category of mental illness.
It's somebody that is a psychopath.
And again, a psychopath is somebody that has no conscience.
And we see it clearly talked about in First Timothy chapter number four, verse number one.
It says, "Now the spirit that speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith,
giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisies, having their conscience seared with a hot iron."
And so, you know, if you have, you know, let's say you had your hand seared with a hot iron, right?
After your hand heals, you probably won't be able to feel with your fingers anymore, right?
You won't be able to feel very well with your hand anymore.
And that's kind of what the Bible is saying here about somebody who's had their conscience seared with a hot iron.
It doesn't work anymore. Their conscience can't feel anymore.
And that's what they say, you know, all the psychologists and the psychiatrists and all these people,
that's what they say about somebody who's a psychopath.
They're like, "Well, this person, they don't have a conscience." What does that mean?
It means they don't have, there's something wrong with their emotions.
They can't feel normal emotions anymore, right?
They don't feel regret. They don't feel remorse. They don't feel pity.
You know, they don't feel, you know, they have no issue with just harming somebody horribly
and ruining somebody's life. It doesn't bother them.
I mean, to them, to somebody who's a psychopath, basically murdering somebody in cold blood
and getting a cheeseburger at McDonald's is basically the same thing.
There's pretty much no difference, right?
And so that's somebody, you know, they can't, they're not feeling sad.
They don't feel sad about what they did or whatever.
Their conscience is seared. It doesn't feel anymore. It doesn't work.
And so the Bible is telling us that there's people out there that are like that.
And who, in this verse in particular, who are these people?
These are people that are spreading doctrines of devils, spreading lies and hypocrisies, right?
What would we call this? We'd call them false prophets.
And in the very next verse, it talks about people that are commanding to abstain from meats.
And so the example would be somebody like Ellen G. White, who's running around.
Well, she's not running around anymore, but she's in hell now.
But, you know, back in the 1800s, she's starting Seventh-day Adventism
and telling people that they need to abstain from meats, right?
And she's left the faith, right?
Because the Millerites, you know, they kind of started off as --
I guess they were kind of a little bit more of a normal kind of a denomination,
but then they went haywire, right?
And they started this false religion of Seventh-day Adventism.
You know, and she became a false prophet and started teaching lies and heresies.
She started teaching damnable heresy as a regard to salvation
and other doctrines of devils, all right?
So she was obviously somebody who had her conscience seared with a hot iron.
And so she was a psychopath.
And I'm pretty sure that, you know, all the popes that have ever lived,
they're all psychopaths, right?
They have their conscience seared.
That's why you always hear about these Roman Catholics that are pedophiles.
You know, these poor little Catholic boys are getting molested by these Catholic priests.
Why? Because they're a bunch of pedophiles. That's why.
But go ahead and turn to Romans chapter number one.
We'll cover Romans chapter one real quick.
Again, this is the most dangerous category of mental illness.
But the Bible tells us exactly how people get this way.
And this is like a big question, you know, in psychology.
They're like, how do people get this way?
You know, we observe what happens.
You know, we can diagnose people and whatnot.
But we have no clue how people get this way.
Well, the Bible tells us.
You know, if the psychologist would put their dumb psychology book down for a minute
and pick up the Bible, maybe they could figure it out.
It says in verse number 18, it says, "For the wrath of God
is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men
who hold the truth and unrighteousness, because they which may be known of God
is manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto them.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world
are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made,
even his eternal power in Godhead, so that they are without excuse,
because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God,
neither were they thankful, but became vain in their imaginations,
and their foolish hearts were darkened."
So, the Bible is clear here, right?
They knew God, they glorified him not as God, right?
And as a result of that, their foolish hearts are darkened.
Verse number 22 says, "Professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God
into an image made like unto corruptible man,
and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.
Wherefore, God also gave them up unto uncleanness,
through the lust of their own hearts,
to dishonor their own bodies between themselves."
So again, we see because they changed the glory of God,
of the uncorruptible God, into the image of a beast,
and a four-footed creeping thing, and what not,
God gives them up unto uncleanness.
So we see here the way somebody has their conscience seared with a hot iron,
is because God gave them over to that.
I mean, who's holding the iron? God is.
God's like, "Okay, will you hate me?
You're going to try to dishonor me by trying to turn me
into a four-footed beast, and what not, and worshiping animals.
Okay, I'm going to sear your conscience with a hot iron,
so that you have no more conscience anymore."
It says, "Who changed the truth of God into a lie,
and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator,
and was blessed forever, amen.
For this cause, God gave them up unto vile affections,
for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature."
Right?
So this is why, you know, oftentimes psychopaths will have unnatural sexual desires,
is because the part of their brain which, you know,
directs normal natural activity in that area has been destroyed.
You know, that's why we see all kinds of homos running around everywhere
is because their conscience has been seared.
That's why they're able to do that.
"Likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust one toward another,
men with men working that which is unseemly,
receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which is meat.
And even as they not like to retain God in their knowledge,
God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient."
And so, once again, for the third time in the chapter he says, "And God gave them over."
And specifically here it says, "He gave them over to a reprobate mind."
So what is it? It's a mental issue. It's a mental illness.
When they say, "Hey, being transgender," it's actually just a mental illness.
That's true. It's simply a mental problem.
And what is that mental problem?
Well, because they rejected God in their mind, that's the problem.
Because they hated God in their heart, they hated God in their mind,
so therefore God gave them up to uncleanness.
He gave them over to a reprobate mind.
And so, you know, psychopathy, being a psychopath,
this is a major category of mental illness.
We know what happened with these people.
Were they born this way? Absolutely not.
The problem is that they hated God.
And God took their proper mind away from them as a punishment.
There's no doubt that being a psychopath is a punishment from God, right?
I mean, could you imagine living life with no emotions?
That would be like, what in the world?
I mean, I guess you wouldn't care because you wouldn't have any emotions.
I mean, that would just be so strange.
I can't imagine it, you know?
It's just the strangest thing in the world, but there's people out there like that.
And how do we know that? Well, because the Bible told us.
And so, you know, that's kind of all the different categories of mental illness
that I can think of in the Bible and whatnot.
And how we should view the world, right?
Because, I mean, we could say, well, you know, why don't we all just go ahead
and pick up a psychiatry book, and we can start reading Jung, Carl Jung,
and we can start reading What's-His-Face, the Father of Modern Psychology.
I can't remember his name. Maybe somebody can.
Well, you need to start reading Sigmund Freud and, you know, all this stuff.
Or you could just pick up the Bible and the Bible has all the answers, the real answers, right?
And, you know, when you view these things in a lot of the Bible, it just kind of clicks.
It just kind of makes sense. It's like, oh, that's why this guy is talking to this guy.
It's because he's demon-possessed, right? And also, don't do drugs.
If there's nothing else, you know, what's the application of this sermon, Jason?
Okay, well, here's the application. Don't do drugs, okay?
Don't do any type of drugs. You know, weed. Don't even start with weed, okay?
Just don't do it. There's no point in it. You could lose your mind.
You could be the guy talking to the sky.
You don't even have to be demon-possessed to talk to the sky, my friend, unfortunately, right?
So just don't do any drugs. You'll be fine. You'll be better off for it.
So you don't want to have major mental illness, right?
That's not going to be fun. You don't want to be like, you know, one of the people that lose their mind.
You don't want to be like Nebuchadnezzar, eating grass.
You know, maybe there's lots of nutrients in grass, but you don't want to be eating it, all right?
Let's go ahead and bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for this day, Lord. I thank you for everything you've done for us, Lord.
We thank you for your word that we can learn about these different mental illnesses and what we can do about them.
And Lord, we pray that you would please help us to never lose our minds, Lord.
We pray there would never be a punishment for us or that we would do something stupid as to lose our minds, Lord.
In the name of Jesus, amen.
We're going to turn to page number 322.
Number 322.
Living for Jesus.
Page number 322.
Sing it out on the first.
Living for Jesus, a life that is true.
Striving to please Him in all that you need.
This is the pathway of blessing for me.
Oh Jesus, Lord and Savior, I give myself to Thee.
For Thou in Thine Atonement didst give Thyself for me.
I owe no other master, my heart shall be Thy throne.
My life I give henceforth to live Christ for Thee alone.
Living for Jesus, who died in my place.
Bearing Calvary my sin and disgrace.
Such love constrains me to answer His call.
Follow and give Him thus, Lord and Savior.
I give myself to Thee, for Thou in Thyself give Thyself for me.
My heart shall be thrust forth to live Christ for Thee alone.
Thus, Lord and Savior, I give myself to Thee, for Thou in Thyself give Thyself for me.
My heart shall be thrust forth to live Christ for Thee alone.
Thus, Lord and Savior, I give myself to Thee, for Thou in Thyself give Thyself for me.
My heart shall be thrust forth to live Christ for Thee alone.