Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / August 13, 2017 | Really? - Good Christians Don't Suffer Depression - David Brickner

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August 13, 2017 | Really? - Good Christians Don't Suffer Depression - David Brickner · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning! Mulvane and College Avenue Buildings.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to see you here on this beautiful morning.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: How you doing?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Don't lie to me.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me the truth.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um you got here through the broken asphalt, through hardship to the stars, and uh and David Osbourne assures us this is probably the worst of a look out there, so it'll be easier from now on.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um by the way, in your bulletin, you should have one of those cards.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I see Danny with one in the front row.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure that's close by.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh David's gonna reference that later, the one that that calls if you'd like for your email address and so forth.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've known David for a while.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: He's uh been the director of Jews for Jesus for 20 years and has become a good friend.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and I really uh I love Jews for Jesus, partly because I know that instead of just telling churches about Jewish people, they're telling Jewish people about Jesus so that at any time during the day I can pray for them and I can know that somewhere in the world, probably one of the Jews for Jesus staff or missionaries is on a street corner or in a coffee house or on the phone talking with someone about the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's a wonderful thing, and I appreciate so much how they helped our students, our high schoolers in Manhattan, in New York City this summer, and helped our young adults over in Eastern Europe, over in Budapest, uh uh on their witnessing ventures.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's just been terrific.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And David, come on up.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: David uh David speaks almost every week in some uh church in our country, speaks at many of the great churches in our country, and uh we're really privileged this week because he is he's in he's doing one for our series, and he's also doing a message he's never done before.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: All right, can you welcome David Brickner?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, and shalom.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: Shalom! All right, I think I heard from the College Avenue building as well.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's wonderful.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: I feel welcome.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think that I have a closer connection to uh TBC than probably any other church, perhaps except for my own church, which I do get to from time to time, get an opportunity to share there as well.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: But you guys have been, I'm your missionary with Jews for Jesus, and I think the first time I came here was with the Liberated Wailing Wall, our music group.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh some of you might have been around long enough to remember that Jewish gospel music that we sang, kind of a cross between Israeli folk and fiddler on the roof.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: But uh over the years, the relationship has really grown much more intimate, much closer.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Jim is not just involved in Jews for Jesus, he's the chairman of the board of directors of Jews for Jesus, so he's my boss.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: So if I'm a little nervous here today, you'll understand why.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Jim, for your service.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: We've been so thrilled to see the growing relationship in terms of the youth coming, both to New York two years in a row, Budapest, and uh just and this past week the level of connectedness grew even more if such a thing were possible.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: I was down in Southern California taking care of my two grandchildren, and Melody Congden came out and painted rooms in my house.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, who does that, right?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: But she did.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so thank you to TBC for sharing your pastor and Melody with us and for partnering with us all around the globe, sharing the good news of the gospel.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: We are relentlessly pursuing God's plan for the salvation of Israel.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I want you to know we just finished our second Berlin evangelistic campaign.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: The first one was last year, and with that we opened up a brand new branch in Berlin.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: Now, you might be thinking, after you know what happened in the Holocaust, that there wouldn't be too many Jews in Germany.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what's happened is that along with German-speaking Jews, you have a lot of Russian Jews that immigrated to Germany in the uh 90s and the early part of the 20 uh 21st century.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: But in the last few years, there has been an upsurge, and over 25,000, mostly younger Israelis, have moved to Berlin for the purposes of business.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so we have had a great, growing opportunity.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: I heard one story yesterday that just thrilled me.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: A woman and her husband walked by, and then she turned around and ran back.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: She says, Oh, Juice for Jesus, you need to know.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Last summer, my husband and I were headed for a divorce, and we met one of your people, and she shared Jesus with us and gave us this New Testament.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: She said, I started reading it.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: I became a believer in Jesus.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: Now my husband's reading it.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: Our marriage is back in a good place, and I hope that he gets saved too.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: And she ran off.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like, wow, you know, how many lives have are touched just because people are making themselves available to share Jesus on the streets or wherever else.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's very exciting for us to be able to partner with you.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: And the reason why we opened up a branch in Berlin, the reason, the way we were able to open up a branch in Budapest is because over the last 17 years, we've been conducting a consistent evangelistic campaign, which we call Operation Behold Your God.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: I've talked about it here before, and God has given us the opportunity to go to places and then open up branches.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: And for the last number of years, we've been doing that in Israel.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: We have a commitment to have saturation evangelism in every city that has a Jewish population of 25,000 or more.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: And now we're getting down to the end of this, and we've saved the very best for last.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: And rather than tell you, I want to show you a little video clip about this.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the biggest challenge our ministry has ever faced, to have behold your God, Jerusalem.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I leave this with you for your prayers, first of all, because we're going to face opposition.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's one of the reasons why we're keeping this kind of in-house for a while, not publishing the dates, because over about two-thirds of the population of Jerusalem are ultra-Orthodox.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: They're religious Jews, and that's the population group that's been most opposing, as it was in Jesus' day.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so we have a lot of unique plans.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: One of them is a service project that was mentioned in that video, and that we're inviting churches such as TBC to send a team.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: And this will be a kind of a service project that will go and coincide with all the other prongs of ministry.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, we're gonna have 70 of our Jews for Jesus staff in Jerusalem doing different things.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: There's a university team that'll be reaching out at Hebrew University.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: There's a yeshiva, which is the ultra-orthodox seminaries.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: They proliferate throughout Jerusalem.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: We've got one team that's focused on that.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: The ultra-orthodox women, the ultra-orthodox men.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: We've got sports ministry, arts ministry.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: Then we have a team called DAF, which is drug, alcohol, prostitute, and homelessness.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: Rampant throughout the city of Jerusalem.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: You don't think of it in that terms, but all the social problems that we have here in this country are there in full in Jerusalem.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so we're gonna have this outreach, and we really want your prayers.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, when you came in, as Jim mentioned, there's this card.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: Would you take that out for just a second?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: And you'll notice my picture on there, right next to there, is a perforation.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: Fold it a few times.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna we'll rip this, we'll rip on the count of three.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'm counting in Hebrew, and amazingly you'll know when to rip, okay?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: Here comes the count.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: The Chad Steim Shalosh.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Unless you're specially creative, you should only have two pieces.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: And the picture of me, take this home with you.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: Take me home with you today, okay?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: And use this as a reminder to pray for Jews for Jesus and particularly to pray for Behold Your God Jerusalem coming up next year.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: Now, this larger part of the card is how you can sign up for our newsletter.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: At the end of the service, the ushers will be coming to receive a love offering for Behold Your God Jerusalem.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: And uh if you put uh this card in, if you don't get a newsletter already, uh just fill this out.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: If you do get our newsletter, fill it out anyway and check the box.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: It says I already receive you newsletter because we also want to send you prayer updates for Jerusalem, Behold Your God.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: You have to put your email address to get that, but we will keep you current with what our prayer needs are, and they will be many, and they will be increasing as the date approaches.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so I also want to send you a book called Christ and the Seven Feasts of Israel that will give you kind of an inside look into how Jesus fulfilled all the feasts of the Lord that were given to the Jewish people.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: So if you fill this card out and then drop it in uh when the ushers come at the end of the service, we'd really appreciate that.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: This is a huge challenge for us, a huge undertaking.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: And and the the gift that you give today, or and the, you know, in response to this, is is I'm I'm asking for an over and above gift because I know many of you just give regularly, and I'm gonna ask you to prayerfully consider an over and above gift because this challenge is huge, and we really need to mostly raise the support this year for the project next year.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: So, with that in mind, really also I'm hoping that some of you will consider joining us and actually coming to Jerusalem.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of Christians go, and I'm not making any fun of you, Jim.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: I thank the Lord that you bring groups over there, but the church has often thought of Israel as like a Christian Disneyland, you know?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's where we go on our vacation to see where Jesus walked.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: But it's a place of tremendous need.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: We send out 500,000 short-term missionaries from the United States every year, but not to Israel.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: We'd like to change that.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: We'd like to change that beginning next year, and that's a challenge that I leave with you.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, Jim's right.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: This is a the message that I'm sharing is is one that uh I prepared in anticipation of the series that you guys have been going through.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: Love the question marks, love the title, been listening to the podcast.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Jim, you guys know you have a gem, right?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I can't, I love his messages, but my favorite out of the series was the House of Crin.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: Do you remember the House of Crin?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, judge not lest you be judged.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: I've never heard anybody handle uh the text in such a marvelous way.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so when I knew I was coming, I asked Jim if it would be okay, and he said sure.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: And the subject, as you can see from the front of the bulletin, is dumb things smart Christians believe, and that is good Christians don't get depressed.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: Have you heard that one before?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's uh it's not true.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, actually, according to the National Institutes of Health, 25% or more of all Americans get depressed at one time or another.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's a lot of people.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: And although there are differences of opinion regarding what causes depression, there are certainly physiological things, chemical imbalances, trauma, all of these things, there are certain symptoms that seem to be accompanying depression that maybe you've experienced or are experiencing right now.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: A lack of interest in things, mood swings, feelings of worthlessness, guilt, shame, um, fatigue, insomnia, um, loss of weight, gaining weight, all of these symptoms are very typical across the board, regardless of the cause of the depression.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I've heard this before, and maybe you have too, and that is that, well, sure, depression is something that can affect Christians if you're really a good Christian.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: That is, if you're a mature Christian, it's not going to affect you.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: And because if it does, you're just showing a lack of faith in God, really.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we know that God is good, we know that God is loving, we know in Jesus that we have a secure place in heaven.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: So what's there to be depressed about, right?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: Come on, snap out of it.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: Claim the promises of God.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: What's wrong with you?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: You don't feel that way.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: Ah boy.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and that misconception really only often complicates the problem for the person who finds themselves that way.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: Blaise Pascal said that the heart has reasons that reason does not understand or knows nothing of.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: And uh there's no question that sin can be a cause of depression, of this kind of psychic pain.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um the psalmist wrote in Psalm 32 that when I kept silent about my sin, my bones wasted away through my groaning.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: And that's easy.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: We can confess our sin, and God will lift the burden of guilt.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: What an access to freedom from that suffering.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: And yet not all depression is caused by sin.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's caused by sin that is against us.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: We live in a broken world, and man, the suffering that has been caused by others, whether it be something as simple as bullying in school, which is at epidemic proportion in America now, or physical abuse, sexual abuse, all of the kinds of things that we see so prevalent in our world, when these traumas happen to us, they impact deeply in the mind and in the heart, and depression comes as a result of these things, certainly.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, for whatever reason, I've been thinking about this with regard to Jerusalem that's coming up.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: This, you know, whenever you are planning something that's a big thing for God, you're attacking the stronghold of God's enemy.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know that ha Satan, Satan, is just the Hebrew word for the enemy, the opposer of God.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so, in a sense, Christians really ought to be more aware of the fact that they have a target on their back.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that Jews for Jesus has a target on our back because of what we're attempting to do that's never been done before since Peter and James and John were out preaching on the streets of Jerusalem.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's not been done.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: So the enemy is going to be opposed to us, and we've already started to see this.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we've got to raise all this support, and three out of our five development team in Jews for Jesus have been down for the count for this last month and a half.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: Not always just depression, it's physical things as well.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: But we as believers in Jesus can often be more subject to these kinds of spiritual attacks.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: If you've read Screwtape Letters and C.S.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: Lewis' you know, great book, if you haven't read it, I encourage you to do so.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: But the guy who's the object of screw tape and wormwood, they're trying to keep him from becoming a believer.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: But when that fails, then they have a whole new shift in tactics.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: Are we aware that the devil prowls around like a lion seeking those whom he may devour?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: And the ones he wants to devour the most are the ones who know Jesus.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, depression happens sometimes to the best Christians, the most solid, rock solid Christians.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: I've been carrying around in my briefcase for years and years this checkbook of the Bank of Faith.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's so portable.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's a devotional reading for every single day of the year by C.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: H.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: Spurgeon, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, one of the great preachers of the modern era.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: Perhaps you know his morning and evening devotional, very famous.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: What I didn't know until recently when I read a biography of him is that he suffered with severe bouts of depression.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, he cried out to God for help and often didn't receive, it seems, answers to his prayer.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: This uh biography by Arnold Dalimore said, What Spurgeon suffered in times of darkness we don't even understand, his desperate calling on God brought no relief.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Spurgeon said, There are dungeons beneath castles of despair.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: Such poetic language to describe the pain that he was often in, though preaching and encouraging the body of Christ in such a powerful way, even to this day.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, for me, my own personal struggle with depression began the day that my wife of 27 years said to me, I no longer love you.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't I didn't see it coming.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: Never a hint of any of it.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then within a year she had left me.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: And here I was, the leader of a ministry, and devastated.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh my children, you know, you see in them the pain that makes it magnified so much.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: And what do you do?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: And submitted my resignation to the board, and I thank God for Jim and others who said that this doesn't end it for you, David.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know, God can restore and supported me through it.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: But it's a pain that just doesn't go away, and that's why the words of the psalmist that we're gonna look at today are so personal for me and so precious.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna read from the New King James Version, but you can open up your Bible to Psalm 42 and 43, which perhaps at one point were one psalm, because there are three stanzas, each of which ends with a very familiar phrase, I'm sure you've heard it before.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: Why are you cast down, O my soul?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: And why are you disquieted within me?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: Those two Hebrew words, cast down and disquieted, are absolutely powerful descriptive terms of this problem of depression.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: Cast down is, you know, a word that basically means it's it's the same word that used for bowing down or for prostrate on the floor, but in this context, it's somebody who's just been knocked over.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody who's just flattened because of something that's happened in their lives, cast down just completely at the end.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then uh disturbed, disquieted in the in the uh King James here, disquieted, Hama.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's kind of like there's a just a constant noise that you can't get out of your head.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, a lack of peace of mind.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's a tumult, if you will.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: And and uh you know, you try to get away to a quiet place and think, and you don't have the capacity for long thoughts, you know, where you can have follow this train because it all it keeps looping back to the same place, the problem.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: And you're disquieted, you're without peace, your mind is just this constant buzz of pain.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that's that's what I experienced, and that's what perhaps many of you have experienced, and that's certainly what the psalmist experienced.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: And there's this in each of these stanzas that we have, you can see, first of all, that the psalmist is far from home.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: Literally, he's from Jerusalem, but he can't get back, maybe because of a political situation or a threat to his own life.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: He's not home, but you know what?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: When you're in depression, you can be home geographically, but in severe dislocation emotionally.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: Your routines are off, your social situation is completely upended, and you don't know where to go.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: Your handles are missing in life.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: Dislocation.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then secondly, deep sadness.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness, that's the expressions of sorrow, and you just can't shake it.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's like a heavy blanket that's just laying on you.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: And thirdly, there's this sense of the interaction with other people around you.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's not pleasant.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: Most of the time, there are some who come alongside and know how to comfort and know how to encourage, but most of the people are either like they don't want to get close enough to really, or they say to you, Where's your God now?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: For me, here I am, the head of this internationally known Jewish ministry, and I've got this thing hanging over me.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: Where's your God now?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: Huh?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: How's this Jesus stuff working out for you?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: Huh?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: Each of the stanzas has a bit of that.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: But then the fourth part is, I think, the part that we need to grab hold and take home with us today, and that is what I call soul talk for the depressed.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: The psalmist in each of these stanzas ends it with this hey, why are you cast down?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my soul.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: And this is an amazing truth.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: That we need to stop listening to ourselves and learn to speak to ourselves in those times.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: So let's take a look at the first stanza, the first uh five verses of Psalm 42.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: As a deer pants for the water, Brooks, so pants my soul for you, O God.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: My soul thirsts for God, for the living.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: God, when shall I come and appear before God?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually say to me, Where is your God?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: For I used to go with a multitude.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: I went with them to the house of God with a voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: Why are you cast down, O my soul?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: Why are you disquieted within me?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: God's face, Panim, smiling on me.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: This is uh the the poet, the psalmist, dealing with the pain of the past.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: I remember.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: I remember what it used to be like, and I can't get back there.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: I remember when I was in Jerusalem, I was so happy back there, and now I'm I can't get back.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: The pain of the past lingers.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I think it's really interesting.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, before I started looking at this psalm closely, the most famous verse was verse one to me.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because of that song, right?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: As the deer panteth for the water, so my soul longeth after the.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of has this pastoral feel.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you see this deer going through the forest, and it's so nice, but really, in reality, look at the context.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: This is not a happy deer.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: This is a deer that should know where the water is, but can't find it.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it's panting.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: And we're talking life and death here.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what the picture is that he's painting.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: My soul thirsts for God.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: I can't find God.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm in the midst of this, and I'm thirsty, I'm parched, I'm away from home, I don't have the access to God's presence, the people, the joy.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: I remember, and all of that is behind me.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: The best things in my life have already taken place.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: And what do I have for the future?
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Remembering the pain of the past.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: I've been I've been excommunicated.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: I've been, for whatever reason, political or religious, my home is Jerusalem, but I can't be there and I remember it.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we are all, Rick Warren said, uh products of the past.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: But we don't need to become prisoners to the past.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so, what do we do?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: We don't listen to ourselves.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: We don't dwell on that.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: We speak to ourselves.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: Martin Lloyd Jones said it well.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: He said, you have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself, remind yourself of God, who he is, what God is, what he's done, what he's pledged himself to do, and having done that in the end, defy yourself, defy other people, and defy the devil and the world, and say with this man, I shall yet praise you for the help of his countenance, who is also the health of my countenance.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: Good words to do in the present when we're struggling with the pain of the past.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: To dwell on the past produces failure in the present, and we need to stop listening to ourselves and talk to ourselves concerning what God has promised.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where He goes to.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: Secondly, the present, verses 6 through 11.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my God, my soul is cast down within me.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: Therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan and from the heights of Hermon, from the hill Mizar.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: Deep calls unto deep at the noise of your waterfalls.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: All your waves and billows have gone over me.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: The Lord will command his loving kindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: I will say to God, my rock, Why have you forgotten me?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: As with a breaking of my bones my enemies reproach me, while they say to me all day long, Where is your God?
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: Why are you cast down, O my soul?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: And why are you disquieted within me?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: The help of my countenance and my God.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: His smile has now become mine.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: His face reflected in mine as I receive his help in this present moment.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: There's a sense in which now we know where the guy is.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: He wanted to be in Jerusalem.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: He can't get there.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: So where is he?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he says he's up around Mount Hermon, Mizmar.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: He's up near the Jordan River, perhaps beyond the Jordan, but he's way up north.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: And the imagery is exactly what you see when you go up there.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: If you've ever been with Jim to Israel and he's taken you up to the north, northern part of Israel, to Banyas.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's the foothills of Mount Hermon, the headwaters of the Jordan River, and it's rushing water and waterfalls.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, there's a place you can go across from Banyas and down the road a bit, which is a national park, and you can walk down into this deep, deep gorge, and the waterfalls are just rushing and pouring.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: And he's saying, I'm in the midst of this.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: And your billows, Lord, wash over me.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: There's something very healing, I think, in my experience, of being in nature, in God's creation, reminding us, taking us out of our routine.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we get so stuck in the world.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: When I go backpacking up in the mountains, it's like a fast from the world.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: No cell phones, no contact.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: And when this happened to me, and the board of directors gathered around me and said, David, we're going to stand with you.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: It was amazing to me.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: And uh my pastor took me up into the mountains, uh, and I was sitting by a waterfall, and you just can't hear anything.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's just was uh, you know, kind of a the the snows were melting and the just the rushing down, you know, the the waterfall, the voice of the Lord, really.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: And in the midst of that loudness, I'm crying out to God, why did you do this to me?
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: Now I knew he didn't do it to me.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think he was offended at all by the fact that I accused him of doing it.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: Because he wants us to come to him with our pain, and that's what the pain that the psalmist is feeling.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: He says, He says, My it's like a broken bone.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: You ever broken a bone?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's the only thing you think about when that happens.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: I broke a big toe on my coffee table leg once.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've never given birth, but you know, that pain was just all consuming at that moment.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: And the psalmist is saying, I got a broken soul bone right now.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: And these enemies are looking at me in my pain, and they're saying, So, how's this God thing working out for you?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: Even the people that are closest to you sometimes say, I don't know, you know, you must have done something.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: This doesn't happen normally, right?
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: You you you gotta figure out what you did wrong.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't help.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: Not at all.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: People don't know what to say, or they do, and they say the most hurtful things.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: And that's happening to you.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: Don't get better.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, in this broken world, we've got a choice.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: When bad things happen, we can either get an infection, or we can get a scar.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus took his scars with him to heaven, no infection.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: And he's coming back with a nail-pierced hand.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: So we gotta be careful to guard our hearts in these moments that we don't allow that infection to spread.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the problem of the present is again solved to the extent that it can be in time when we don't listen to ourselves but speak.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: Hope in God.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: Take your eyes off of your problems and turn.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: Remember that hymn, turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the pains of earth will grow faintly dim in the light of his glory and grace.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we need to do.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: Someone said to me while I was going through this, he said, David, how you doing?
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I heard the words come out of my mouth, I'm powerless in the palm of Providence.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: I like that, and I've used this sense because it really describes how I was feeling at the time.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: I I can do nothing.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: What can I do?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: But I know that I'm in the palm of Providence, and what better place to be in the midst of that pain than right in the hand of the Almighty who knows what's best for us, who wants what's best for us, and will do what's best for us.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's what you do in the present, and you don't know how long that's gonna last because you also have a concern.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: The prospects for the future.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: Psalm 43.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: Vindicate me, oh God.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: I want some justice here.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: These guys down in Jerusalem that have kicked me out, that are seeking my life for whatever reason, I need some justice.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: Plead my cause against an ungodly nation.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, who's the ungodly nation but his own?
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: His own people.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: He probably had the face.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: He knew who he was talking about here.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: We don't.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: But we do fixate on people, don't we?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: We can blame that person.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: I want justice.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: God is a God of justice.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: Not on our timing table, though.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: For you are the God of my strength.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: Why do you cast me off?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, send out your light and your truth.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: Let them lead me, let them bring me to your holy hill and to your tabernacle.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: Bring me back to Jerusalem.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's what's going to happen.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then I will go to the altar of God.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: To God, my exceeding joy.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: Right now I'm exceedingly sad, but I know in the future there's going to be joy unspeakable.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then get out the instruments.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: On the harp I will praise you, O God, my God.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: Get out that guitar and start strumming because we're going to be praising the Lord.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: Why are you cast down, O my soul?
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_02: Why are you disquieted within me?
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: The help of my countenance and my God.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing reality that we have.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: When we get out of ourselves, we're no longer looking back.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: We're no longer just, you know, in the present so painfully that we can think of nothing else, but we're starting to think about the future.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good thing.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: But the future can also look dark.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: Ever been in a dark room and everything looks kind of sinister?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what do you do?
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: You turn on the light.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: And the chair is not a robber.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: The tree through the window is not a monster.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's a tree and a chair.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: But we need what?
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_02: We need light.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: We need truth.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: Send forth your truth.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: Send forth your light.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: These words reminded me of that scene where Galodriel gives Frodo the light of Ellendil in Lord of the Rings, if you've seen it.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: And she says, Let this be a light for you in a dark place when there is no other light.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes we're in a dark place, and there is no other light than what?
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: The light that God sends.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_02: Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: God's word is both light and truth.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we're speaking when we speak to ourselves, when we have soul talk.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: We're not listening to ourselves.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: We're speaking the word of God and what he says to us.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it puts the lie to the lies of the devil.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: I spoke to someone after the last service who said that their husband had in a depression come to believe that he was no longer saved.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: Even though he loved the Lord, a supporter of Jews for Jesus for many, many years, but in the midst of bipolar depression, the lie of the devil was you're not really saved.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, how?
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: You can't say, oh yes, you are.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: Show him the word.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: Give him the truth, the light.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_02: Show, shine that light.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: And it'll lead us forward.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: Even in dark times.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: Even in dark times.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_02: Corey Timboom said, worry doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: It just empties today of its strength.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: So don't do it.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: George McDonald said, no one ever sank into the burden of the day.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's when tomorrow's burden is added onto the burden of today that it becomes more weight than one can bear.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: So when we get past the past and we're in the present and looking toward the future, light and truth.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: I was just thinking about this recently because, you know, that we were July 4th, the Declaration of Independence.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and all are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody knows that.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: You learn that in school.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: But how many of us actually know and believe it?
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: Because truth is not self-evident, especially when you're in the throes of depression.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's not self-evident.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: It needs to be brought to you.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: Think of that.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: All men are created equal?
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: If they're white and they're men.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's true, right?
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's not self-evident.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's divinely revealed that He created that the image, the Amago Dei, the image of God is in each and every one of us.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: Men and women.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: All color.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: Doesn't matter.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_02: And even though we have it in our Declaration of Independence, even back then and today, it's hard to grab onto because it's not just self-evident, it's God's truth.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_02: And that we are endowed by our Creator.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_02: Once I was watching Chris Cuomo on CNN in the morning show, debate with Pastor Jeffries down in Dallas.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: And Cuomo says, because Jeffrey said, you know, God, you know, our rights are from God.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_02: He says, no, they're not.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: They're from the law.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's the law that gives us these rights.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: Even on our Declaration of Independence, it says it's it's endowed, we're endowed by our Creator, and yet how many people in the world don't even believe in a Creator?
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_02: His truth, his light.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: It'll make all the difference in the world.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's the solution.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: We don't live in the past.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: We realize the present is not forever.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then we can cultivate a hope for the future.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: Do Christians suffer depression?
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, many right here in this room may be right now, but there is hope.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: Hope in God.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_02: Speak.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: Don't listen.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: Speak God's word.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus, the Bible tells us, wept.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's something special that that's the shortest verse in the Bible.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_02: Because God wants us to pay attention.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: We all want to memorize the Bible.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: Memorize that one.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: You can get it.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus wept.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: What does it mean to us?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: Just what Isaiah predicted it would be: that he's a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: We all want to say, be like Jesus.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_02: But that means weeping and having sorrow.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's okay.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: And being acquainted with grief.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_02: And like him, we'll carry our scars to heaven.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uninfected by bitterness or sin, knowing that in this path of sorrow that we're on, God redeems even the worst of things.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: There's a one of my favorite poets from the 1700s named William Cooper.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually spelled C-O-W-P-E-R, but uh pronounced Cooper.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: And uh he was institutionalized three times for mental illness and wrote some of the most powerful hymns that we sing even to this day.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: During his second institutionalization, he was near where um Amazing Grace, John Newton, was pastoring.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: John went to see him, led him to Christ.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then when he got out that second time, John took him under his wing and said, I've written this song called Amazing Grace, and I want you to write, and we're gonna put a hymnal together, which they did.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_02: And we sing some of Cooper's songs, but uh in light of that, listen to this one, some of the phrases you've heard before.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm, deep in unfathomable minds of never failing skill.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_02: He treasures up his bright designs and works his sovereign will.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_02: The clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessing on your head.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: And Cooper was to spend another time in an institution after writing those words.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: And this life we live, often unpredictable, but God is the same, and we can trust him, and we can look to him, and we can experience his grace.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_02: In a moment, the band's gonna come and sing.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna have our time of giving for the behold your god Jerusalem campaign.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: But before that happens, let me just lead us in a word of prayer.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: Lord, we thank you for the reality that goes beyond experience.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: That you are a gracious God, that you are a merciful God, that you are a loving God, and that you have resources for us that we have yet to experience.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_02: Some of us, Lord, right now are really struggling.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: We've had experiences in life that have really crushed us, and we're trying to get back up.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: Oh Lord, come alongside us and lift us, heal us.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: May your light and truth speak to our hearts and minds so that the hope of heaven grows more real each and every day.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: In Jesus' name.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: I fixed my eyes.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: I to always guide you along the new road.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_02: In Numbers chapter six, God gave the priests of Israel, the sons of Aaron, these words, and he said, Bless my people with this blessing, and they will be blessed.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: First in Hebrew and then in English.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: Would you bow your heads, please?
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: May the Lord bless you and keep you.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_02: May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and grant you his peace.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_02: Bashem Yeshua Meshi Hainu Sar Hashalom.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: In the name of Jesus, our Messiah, the Prince of Peace.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.