The Theme of Depression - Charles R. Swindoll

you're listening to dallas theological seminaries chapel podcast our president mark Bailey is speaking in chapel at Cedarville University in Ohio today our speaker here is dr. Charles swindle he served as the fourth president of Dallas seminary from 1994 to 2001 and he's now serving us as the Chancellor and he is also the senior pastor at Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco as most of you know dr. swindle is the featured Bible teacher on the popular radio program insight for living which is aired many times a day worldwide and he's also the author of many books on Bible characters and topics for Christian living his warmth and insight humor and personal transparency has made him a well-loved pastor teacher during the 40 years that he has served the Lord in ministry he and his wife Cynthia live here in the Metroplex they enjoy spending time with their four adult children and ten grandchildren it's a great privilege for us to have dr. Chuck Swindoll come and minister to us at this time please give him a warm welcome well we're getting down to the wire won't be long before you'll be out in the real world facing the stuff that's waiting for you and it's a crazy crazy bunch of stuff my son just early this morning on email sent me the true story of what was the first-place winner in the recent criminal lawyers award contest okay you ready you really aren't but I'm going to read it to you Charlotte North Carolina a lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive cigars then insured them against many other things fire within a month he had smoked all 24 of these great cigars and without and without yet having made even his first premium payment on the policy the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company in his claim the lawyer stated the cigars were lost in a series of small fires the insurance company refused to pay citing the obvious reason that the man had consumed the cigars in a normal fashion the lawyer sued and won stay with me here delivering the ruling the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous the judge stated nevertheless that the lawyer had a policy from the company which it had warranted that the cigars were in were insurable and also guarantee that it would insure them against fire without defining what was considered to be acceptable fire and was obligated to pay the claim rather than endure lengthy and costly appeal process the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid fifteen thousand dollars to the lawyer for his loss of the twenty four cigars lost in the fire now the best part after the lawyer cashed the check the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of arson one of you may one day have an attorney like that in your church this is a crazy world out there I just within the last 24 hours had a man tell me who had been in pastor it worked for many years say to me in all seriousness honestly I really wouldn't want to go back into it today he's in ministry but he said when I think of the whole responsibility that rests on the shoulders of a person that leads a flock he said I that's not for me anymore well it is for me that's my calling and that's going to be your calling and if the greatest calling on the planet but it's also weird the stuff you'll be dealing with but none of it is new that is that the details are but we've been weird since the fall and we just get weirder as depravity develops over centuries of time and so I'm picking up a theme that will that will impact your life unless you're ready yourself for some of this kind of nonsense appropriately and that is the whole struggle with discouragement we're to sing an old hymn when I was a little boy in El Campo where I was raised I would remember laying down on a bench and countless tiles in the ceiling and laying by my mom and dad as I would hear some of those hymns and one of them went like this how tedious and tasteless the hour when Jesus no longer I see sweet prospects sweet birds and sweet flowers have all lost their sweetness to me the midsummer Sun shines but dim the fields strive in vain to look gay as back in the days when gay was a word you could use in in the first meaning of it but when I am happy and him December's as pleasant as May those quaint and obsolete words are true but the key to them is being happy in him you will never find happiness in your circumstances so don't even think about going there and so as I think about the theme of discouragement even depression though it may not reach clinical depression sometime it does I think of five or six cases in the scriptures where different individuals fell into the trap of course it not surprisingly Judas in his remorse ultimately hang himself saw sitting in a dark tent consumed with himself and the world about him was engaged in a demonic depression that was to the point of paralyzing his actions Moses fell into discouragement Exodus chapter 11 tells us of it Jonah after a great revival at Nineveh pouted and was discouraged over the fact that these Gentiles would repent and of course Paul that's the surprisingly second Corinthians 1 verse 8 says that he despaired even of life you know that he despaired even of life perhaps there's no depth of discouragement deeper than the one I'm looking at in first Kings chapter 19 which our Old Testament people immediately identify as Elijah's slump into discouragement it's amazing to me how relevant Scripture continues to be by the way you don't make the Bible relevant when you preach or when you teach the Bible is relevant you help people see how relevant it is and and we'll see that here the principles are just timeless as they are true now first Kings nine revolves around four people and ultimately of course Jehovah God the first of the four is a king named a hab he is the classic whip out husband he is the weak-kneed of impact husband of this woman he's married to named Jezebel she is the classic dominating wife they're sort of the Bonnie and Clyde of the Old Testament a hab and Jezebel af falls apart under pressure ultra dependent on his wife and needing her to sort of carry him through and of course Jezebel takes matters into her own hands and does the job her way and relies on the flesh start-to-finish they're quite a couple and of all things they are living in the era of one of the great of all greatest of all prophets named Elisha on whose life God's hand rests firmly now they had beginning of verse one told Jezebel all that Elijah had done that just fits a Habs style you can imagine it when they're sitting at home wherever home was and he sort of whines how he had killed all the prophets with the sword Jezebel doesn't even talk much about it she just goes into action and she sent a messenger to Elijah so may the gods do to me and even more if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time well that's a biblical way of saying you're history it's only a matter of time and you had the audacity to kill our prophets it's curtains and a hab doesn't step in doesn't make any change in the plan Jezebel leaves that threat on Elijah and the first four words of verse three tell us how he handled them he was afraid first time you read of Elijah's fear and he's willing to stand against the gods of bail or the god Vail and and all of the prophets of bail he is willing to call down fire from heaven on the altar and there's no fear in front of all of them but this catches him completely off-guard that's how it happens by the way discouragement comes in a surprising way delivered through a back door unexpected messenger by the way I've been reading my good friend Gary Smalley's latest book change your heart change your life and in it Gary uh curry does a good job sort of analyzing our emotions if you want to be strictly accurate we can never say you make me sad or you make me afraid or what you said really upset me not one of these statements but others like them is ever true what happens to you or even what happened uhz to you never makes you happy or sad and we would say in this case or afraid there is a step between the it now don't miss this between the event and the emotion that is the true cause of how you feel to explain this phenomenon let's turn to dr. Albert Ellis founder of cognitive therapy dr. Ellis developed the famous ABC model to explain how our experiences beliefs and actions interact his model of a three event sequence that happens every time you feel an emotion such as fear worry sadness or discouragement follows in this manner a the event happens to you good or bad be what you think about the event that happens to you see the feelings that follow what you think of the event so you have the event then you have what you think about the event that's what triggers the emotions here's how the interaction between belief and action works when the event happens to you your brain perceives the experience through one or more of your five senses in a matter of milliseconds so fast you're not aware of the procedure your brain processes the experience using information stored in your subconscious mind which as previously stated I like to call your heart a term we all understand your heart interprets the experience by the information it has stored within it that information produces your feelings about the experience and your feelings produce your resulting action now I'm I'm no psychologist don't pretend even to be an armchair student of much of that I just know when I read that it makes sense the event that happened to Elijah is clear there's a threatening statement Jezebel makes she says you're not going to live much beyond the next 24 hours so many words and then we read he's afraid what we don't read is the millisecond of information or the passing of information through the subconscious of his brain that causes him to be afraid because before chapter 18 is one of the greatest models of courage in the old testament if not all of time but now he's afraid before he stood against all those prophets now there's one woman one person who threatens him and he and he's afraid when you analyze this kind of thing you realize you have been there and as I began to do that and I read what he does about his fear verse 3 he arose ran for his life his life is in God's hands he knows that but he's he's momentarily paralyzed his faith has suddenly shut down thankfully it's temporary but it's shut down and he is responding as if he had never stood against the prophets of bale he had never stood toe-to-toe against Ahab saying there won't be rain until the Living God brings rain but now he's afraid and he he runs for his life and he comes to Beersheba and you know the length of Israel damned to Beersheba he's as far away as he can get he leaves his servant there and he himself goes another day's journey into the wilderness and and he came and sat down under a juniper tree and he requested for himself that he might die and he said it is enough now O Lord take my life I am NOT better than my father's I don't know if you have ever been there but if you are ever there I want you to remember this little talk today I want you to remember this more important than the talk I want you remember the story this great man of God is reduced to a heap of self-pity what had happened to Elijah well I've written down three four five things that I observe if not written at least they're implied first of all he did not think realistically or clearly he failed to consider the source it was an unbelieving woman he failed to see behind the threat it was a bluff he failed to call upon his Lord immediately there's no prayer there if there is nothing but fear and flight um so he failed to think clearly realistically second he separated himself from strengthening relationships he even left his servant and win another day's journey I have discovered that under juniper trees there's mainly only single beds or there's a single chair and it's hard almost without exception I won't say without exception because I can't remember all the times in my life when I've been discouraged but almost without exception when I've been discouraged I have felt all alone and frequently it was my fault there were a lot of people who would have come to bring encouragement and even been an advocate come to my rescue but you fight those kind of battles alone unfortunately and that's what Elijah does strong healthy honest realistic friends with arms around us can help us through most of those tedious and tasteless hours this is why you must keep cultivating your marriage there's no greater advocate on the planet than your spouse I came in the door one evening several months ago at the very bottom and our back door kind of closes automatically on its own as I walked in I just stepped away and took my coat off and hung it on a little rack we have there and the door closed and there stood Cynthia she had done a little of what I was going through and was soon to find out the whole thing and and she just said welcome home and I immediately sensed I'm really not alone in this I have an understanding spirit in my wife of 52 years I cannot tell you how beneficial that is Elijah doesn't have anyone the third thing he is he is caught in the aftermath of a great victory please remember this and please keep it ever in mind because thank God by His grace he will give us times of victory I'm telling you better than we ever deserve wonderful results or wonderful answer to prayer or a wonderful breakthrough or a magnificent provision of some financial need where we were facing an impossible situation or maybe as a result of your ministry just a groundswell of obvious spirit lead response and and it's a it's a victory that's like the crest of the wave and like the wave it can also crash I have found that that is one of the most vulnerable times in my life immediately following great victories we were taught in the Marine Corps as soon as you take the hill or the objective you set up what they call a hasty defense you don't sit down and break out the rations you don't sit around and talk about how great the victory was you instantly set up communication and a guard / M a hasty defense because in the military we've learned that's a vulnerable time when you start strutting your stuff thinking the battle is over and in fact it may be the first or the second or third of several more to come he's on the heels of this wonderful victory vulnerable time fourth he is physically and emotionally spent do not over estimate God's servants don't overestimate your own strength you need rest just like everybody else you weren't more spiritual because you you skip times of sleep I think it was Shafer our founder who made a statement something like this sometime it is more spiritual to get a good night's sleep than to pray for another hour just go to bed just rest just rest and if a little medication will help careful now so little medication will help a little medication ought to be taken for we finish our long journey overseas sent and I usually take a little sleep ease deal that helps us sleep on the plane and it you feel so much more refreshed you help make that transfer but if you I remember first time I went other I don't need that man I got ready I wasn't worth a tooth for about three days from the time I got there that jetlag thing but this is far worse than jetlag you keep doing it Sunday after Sunday Sunday after Sunday week after week week after week bragging about never taking your day off and never taking your vacation you are on your way to a serious serious fall there's an old Greek motto that says you will break the bow if you keep it always bent unstring the bow back off he doesn't do that and finally he submits to the Beast of self-pity and so he says to the Lord it's enough take my life there are wonderful times when the Lord's response to our prayers is that's ridiculous in so many words he judge he does it by just saying no you know I'll take your life when it's time I don't need your prompting and and here's the reason I am not better than my father's whoever said he had to be better than his father's why don't we set up these unrealistic goals that you know our church isn't growing like the one in that other city or God isn't using us as mightily as he's using it's classmate that graduated with me whose grades were ridiculously low and I graduated here she graduated here and look at the debt is not right you're not calling the shots a goals are fine objectives are great but usually you're wrong and they're unrealistic and I'm not better than my father's eye I would have said if I'd have been by him that's right you don't have to be you want to be better than anybody else you just have to be you control with the spirit and Elijah is occupied with himself and so we lay down and slept finally he slept under a juniper tree and there was an angel touching him and he said arise and eat isn't that good I want to show you some things about God's intervention here that are just so I think so like our God first of all he allowed him rest and refreshment verse 7 touched him and said arise and eat the journeys too great for you not great and he rose and ate and he drank and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb God saw that Elijah was simply in need of being quiet and sort of mentally and emotionally regrouping some people speak to counselors and often the wise counselor must be the one to confront the fact that you are simply spent you need to back off take care of yourself I made a quick list of what God didn't do you do he didn't say write on the chalkboard fifty times I will not be discouraged he didn't say that he did not say memorize the book of Exodus he did not say you want to feel ashamed of yourself Elijah and the worst thing you shouldn't feel like that I don't know why we tell people that that's really helpful isn't it it's like saying to a dirty diaper you shouldn't be dirty or a flat tire you shouldn't have gone flat please don't do that with other people jobs councilors did that it led to this lengthy dialogue with these idiots that that came to quote comfort him they just took turns criticizing him God says the journey is too great here eat this and he ate it he went in the strength of that forty days and so he communicated wisely with him then there's the dialogue verse nine he came there to a cave and he lodged there and behold isn't this great the word of the Lord came to him there rather than well now look where you gotten you're now in a cave that's worse than under a tree doesn't do that he comes to him there and he says what are you doing here Elijah not a great question why are you there what are you doing in there he said I've been very zealous for the Lord the God of hosts for the sons of Israel have forsaken your covenant tore down your Wolters and killed your prophets with the sword and I alone and left and they seek my life to take it away it's all about Elijah before we beat up on him I tell you that is that is such a common response when you're discouraged you start thinking of all the things that you've done and how faithful you've been and how right you've tried to be and how strong and and under it all is how proud you are of that rather than Lord a breath in my lungs comes from you the pulse beat in my heart is from you the ability to wake up in the morning and face the day is because of you your faithfulness is new every morning and the Lord doesn't even rebuke him after verse 10 boy that was a perfect time to slam him to the mat isn't it but he doesn't so he said go out there and stand on the mountain before the Lord behold the Lord was passing by and a great strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the Lord but the Lord was not in the wind and after the wind and earthquake but the Lord wasn't in the earthquake and after the earthquake a fire but the Lord was not in the fire and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing and it came about when Elijah heard it he rapped his face in his mantle and stood at the entrance of the cave what a great if you're an artist paint that forest what a great moment in Elijah's life he's wrapped the mantle around him you could just see his eyes peeking out from that and the voice came and said what are you doing here Elijah see the question is designed to help Elijah think through his stuff the interesting thing about the Lord in in his plan is that is that he he doesn't just instantly stop stuff he probes us the test lasts I learned from mrs. Dwight Pentecost years years ago she said to me one time Chuck God not only plans the depth of a test but the length of them God no no plans the depth of a test but the length of them God could have instantly removed all of this from Elijah taking the burden right off his back but he didn't he's having Elijah work his way through it just like a divine counselor would ask you the questions to make you answer back and think out loud why does this get to me why am i staying in this mental state why do I yield to this why was I afraid of the words of Jezebel what was it that made me run so God's giving him insights by asking these questions he said I had the same answer Elijah still reasoned the script I've been very zealous for the Lord and the God of hosts and your covenant torn down your altars and killed your prophets his sword and I alone him left and they seek my life to take it away and the Lord says to him I've heard that before no he doesn't say that he says go return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus and when you've arrived you will annoyed hase a king over Iran and Jehu son of nimshi you shall anoint king over Israel and Elisha the son of J fan of a bill may Allah you shall anoint his prophet in your place he gave him a close friend a number of years ago our daughter broke a vertebrae in her back and I was called a scene and she couldn't move she was numb from her literally from her chin her jaw down and it was terrible she got through that thank God and her feeling is all back and she she just she every once in a while she'll feel the pain there but it wasn't the that crucial vertebra she had to go through ice surgery had an eye that wouldn't stay put and so while we were living in Dallas the first surgeon worked on it and said you may need to have this done again and we moved to California and the I no longer wondered but now it was kind of crossed and then it would at times go out obviously the muscles were not holding it so that they could it would fuse and focus so we went to a pediatric ophthalmologist and by now the bills are mounting and the possibilities are less positive because of scar tissue and I remember thinking man is you know the doctor warned me he said you need to know that this this is a tough surgery and it may not come out right and I thought in my mind as much as you're charging me it will come out right man it's got to come out right and she came out of surgery and I was bleeding I remember standing over her had my hands on both sides ever had sentence it to me back off back off you're all over the I said she mentioned being under stress I'm not under stress honey look look at me look at me look at me look at me open your eye honey so she opens her little eyelid the pupil is looking directly at her nose all I can see is white except for just an edge of the color I just hit bottom and I go through all of this no juniper tree and no cave but I go through all those feelings and a friend of mine heard of what we were going through so I got back to the office and I put signs on the my study do not disturb big big font you know and he just walked right through him and I said didn't you see he said I don't care what you wrote on that door he says you and I did spend some time together and and I thought I don't want to be with you he says well I want to be with you so let's go so he kidnaps me and get in his car and we go to a park and he buys us hamburgers and tells me he loves me and says they're still a god gets back to me what I preach like three Sundays earlier and but he never once said you know you taught me this he just said just once you remember well while I was gone another friend came and he's an artist now later worked for Disney wonderful artist and he had drawn a monk in my office big poster board great big old monk big toes sticking through his sandals and and he wrote across the chest of the monk did we in our own strength confide our striving would be losing were not the right man on our side the man of God's own choosing just ask who this may be Christ Jesus it is he Lord Sabbath his name from age to age the same and he must win battle I love you chuck Noah Elias my artist friend well between the love of Earl a friend and the love of Noah another friend I began to think there will be a sunrise God isn't dead I'll be able to survive this our daughter be okay by the way the next time we went to hospital her eyes were straight on and only recently has she had to start wearing glasses for other reason he just getting older but her eyes are fused the Lord gave him Elijah and it's amazing what it did I've often wished that I could read their conversation as the two of them walked together I don't know where you're going to wind up in this crazy world I don't know whose life you're going to touch more than you could imagine I don't know what influence you're going to have on individuals more than you ever dream the part of the effectiveness of your ministry will will be the things you learn when you get discouraged that will give you depth that you would not otherwise have you give you understanding it'll take away your tendency to criticize they'll give you a heart may God hold your clothes in the slough of despond Lord we're grateful that we're never alone or be thank you that we could never get away from you no matter what tree we get under or what cave we hide in or gurth thankful that no situation is outside the boundaries of your plan thank you for sleep thank you for wrist thank you for good food thank you for friends thank you for reminding us that we don't have to be better than our fathers thank you for helping remove from us all the self-pity and self serving that is so often a part of our existence in all our getting of knowledge help us to get understanding give us a heart for those who can't keep up give us a sweet spirit toward those who are low and broken and continue Lord to show us through six periences like this that you often do your best work when everything seems dark weeping indoors for the night but joy comes in the morning in Jesus name we thank you everybody said amen

Channel: Dallas Theological Seminary

Views: 110,556

Keywords: provident, Elijah, depression, perseverance, suffering, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dr. Charles Swindoll

Id: z_3NIvlk3Lc

Length: 44min 5sec (2645 seconds)

Published: Tue May 15 2012