Defeating Depression

Bible Book: 1 Kings 19 : 1-8

Subject: Depression; The Blues; Sadness

Series: Dealing With How Your Feeling

[Editor's Note: This sermon is the first in a series of sermons by Blake Carroll. You can find all 9 messages on PastorLife. Simply search in PastorLife within SERIES and look for Dealing With How Your Feeling to list all 9 sermons.]

Introduction

"And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, also how he had executed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, 'So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.' And when he saw that, he arose and ran for his life, and went to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die, and said, 'It is enough! Now, LORD, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!' Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and said to him, 'Arise and eat.' Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank, and lay down again. And the angel of the LORD came back the second time, and touched him, and said, 'Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you.' So he arose, and ate and drank; and he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God" (1 Kings 19:1-8, NKJV).

Depression is America's number one emotional disorder. One out of every eight people reading this book, are in some state of depression right now. There is a difference between typical sadness, which we all undergo from time to time, and outright depression. There is a difference between having the "blahs" and having the "blues."

In 1 Kings 19 it is apparent that the prophet Elijah wasn't just sad - he was depressed. So what is the difference? Dr. Aaron T. Beck has said that depression differs from sadness in that it is more intense, it lasts longer, and it significantly interferes with effective day-to-day functioning.

Psychologists have depicted depression this way: "A feeling of helplessness and hopelessness that leads to intense sadness."

Therefore if you are depressed, understand, first of all, that you are not strange. Many years ago there was a young Midwestern lawyer who experienced such chronic depression that for a while his friends kept all knives and razor blades away from him for fear that he might commit suicide. During this time, he wrote these words: "I am now the most miserable man living. Whether I shall ever be better, I cannot tell. I awfully forebode that I shall not."[1]

This same man afterward wrote: "I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on earth. To remain as I am is impossible. I must die or be better." The man who wrote those words was none other than President Abraham Lincoln.

Winston Churchill, conceivably the greatest Prime Minister in the history of Great Britain, the man who was renowned for saying, "Never give up, never, never, never, never give up," called depression a "black dog" that followed him all of his life. Some of the richest, some of the most famous, some of the most powerful people who have ever lived, suffered tremendous bouts of depression.

I would also add that if you are depressed, you are not sinful. In some ways, we who are Christians find it difficult to admit that we are depressed because we feel that depression is a sign that we are just not godly, and that we are not as close to the Lord as we should be. As a matter fact, many people incorrectly think that the Word of God teaches that depression is a sin, and that born-again believers should never be depressed. However, nothing could be farther from the truth.

The fact of the matter is, some of the greatest people in the Bible struggled with depression. Moses, the greatest leader Israel has ever recognized, the man who by himself delivered the people of Israel from Egyptian bondage, once became so depressed that he said, "If You treat me like this, please kill me here and now - if I have found favor in Your sight - and do not let me see my wretchedness!" (Numbers 11:15, NKJV).

Elijah, the first great preaching prophet, right after his tremendous victory over the pagan prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel, fell so deeply into the ditch of depression that he prayed, "It is enough! Now, Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!" (1 Kings 19:4b, NKJV).

Jonah, the prophet who was swallowed by a great fish, and lived to tell about it, expressed the same plea. "Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!" (Jonah 4:3, NKJV).

Now here were three great men: one a patriarch, one a prophet, and one a preacher. Nevertheless, all of them became so depressed they wanted to die. Each one of them said, "Stop this crazy world, I want to get off."[2]

More recently one of the godliest men who has ever lived, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, was frequently plunged into severe depression during his ministry, due in part to gout but also for other reasons. In a biography of the "prince of preachers," Arnold Dallimore wrote, "What he suffered in those times of darkness we may not know ... even his desperate calling on God brought no relief." "There are dungeons," he said, "beneath the castles of despair."

Last of all, understand that if you are depressed, you are not secluded. If you feel you are alone, you will not be for long. This is because depression not only affects you; it eventually has an effect on others. Depression is infectious. When we get depressed we will ultimately affect the people around us: our spouses, our children, our friends. Sometimes we pass depression around so we can make other people miserable with us.

Christian therapist and best-selling author, H. Norman Wright, has said, "Anytime you have to exist in an atmosphere where...the environment is depressive...that depression can be contagious to those who are subjected to it."[3]

In fact, studies currently show that the single biggest risk factor for depression is having it in the family. For an estimated two-thirds of relatives of depressed patients also have been depressed.

Incidentally, women are twice as vulnerable to depression as men are. Nevertheless, I want you to know if you have that feeling of helplessness and hopelessness, there is indeed help for the helpless and hope for the hopeless.

I. The Characteristics of Depression

Depression has become so pervasive in our society that it is presently called "the common cold of mental illness." It is estimated that 35 million Americans suffer some degree of depression, and 10 million are severely depressed. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that depression is now a billion dollar a year business. Over eight million Americans have depression severe enough to cause them to miss work, or to send them to the doctor.

Research tells us that one out of every seven individuals will need professional help for depression sometime during his or her lifetime. Industry loses an estimated four to six billion dollars a year in productivity because of the effects of unacknowledged and untreated depression. An estimated 30 to 40 million Americans (and of these, there will be twice as many women as men) will experience a depressive illness at least once in their lives, and 30 to 40 percent of these will experience the problem again. Twenty-five thousand people will commit suicide this year, and 15,000, or 60 percent of those suicides, will be directly related to depression.

Contrary to previous and popular opinion, depression is now found universally among younger people. Depression now is most likely to strike between the ages of 25 and 44. Those who are least likely to be depressed are over the age of 60.[4]

The common symptoms of depression include: feelings of sadness, hopelessness, or pessimism loss of interest and/or pleasure in once enjoyed Activities (hobbies, sex, etc.) Changes in appetite or weight. Changes in sleeping patterns or insomnia. Restlessness or decreased activity that is noticeable to others. Feelings of fatigue or having little energy. Difficulty in concentrating or making decisions. Slowness of thought or action Feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt. Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide. Lowered self-esteem and heightened self-depreciation. A decrease or loss of ability to enjoy daily life. [5]

If you have at least four of these symptoms, you would be diagnosed as suffering major depression. If you have three of these symptoms, you would be described as chronically depressed. Quite honestly, according to this assessment, Elijah was a basket case. He abandoned normal activities, he was lonely, he was gloomy, and he felt hopeless and helpless, he was not eating well, and he was exceedingly irritable.

Take into consideration that once a person falls into depression, the risk is that depression often leads the person into deeper and darker phases. Thus I think it would be beneficial if we outlined the phases of depression:

A passive or listless feeling sadness.
An attitude of "Nothing seems to matter."
A feeling of helplessness.
A feeling of hopelessness.
An attitude of "Nothing is ever going to get better." An idea that no one cares or understands.
A sense of rejection.
A feeling of "I would be better off dead."
A desire for death itself.

In all honesty, virtually all of us have experienced at least a few, if not most, of these emotions at some time or another to one degree or another. That raises the question, "Why do we get depressed?"

II. The Causes of Depression

Almost all psychologists and psychiatrists agree that depression is produced by a combination of factors: sometimes physical, sometimes emotional, sometimes mental, and sometimes a mixture of some or all of them. Furthermore, there are essentially four types of depression. There is endogenous depression, which is caused by a chemical imbalance within the central nervous system. There is reactive depression. This is caused by a reaction to such things as the death of a loved one, or a severe personal setback such as a divorce, breaking up with a sweetheart, the loss of a job, etc. There is toxic depression, which is caused by an alien substance such as a virile illness, drugs, or a faulty diet. The last type is psychotic depression. This is the type that is associated with a "nervous breakdown," over-exhaustion, a mental disorder, or brain disease.

Therapists concur that the first two types of depression, endogenous and reactive, account for the majority of cases of depression.[6]

Those are the clinical descriptions of the causes of depression, and they are reasonably consistent with the biblical description of the causes of depression. There seem to be basically three causes:

A. Physical Tiredness

For instance, Elijah was physically worn out. He had been fasting for a long time, and therefore his body was weakened. He had just completed a run of marathon proportions, running a full day into the wilderness without stopping. His strength was gone. He was hungry and thirsty, and he was physically bushed.

In a similar way, depression can cause problems for the modern-day workaholic who works late at night, rises early in the morning, eats on the run, gets very little exercise, and just stays physically exhausted. It can happen to the homemaker who has several children, with endless household duties, crying babies, and seemingly more chores in her hands than hours in the day. She gets weary, she gets cantankerous, and she gets depressed.

Be aware that when your body is physically tired and worn out, when your diet is poor and unhealthy, when you are not getting an ample amount of rest, when your nerves are clattering from pressure and anxiety, you are a prime target for the demon of depression.

B. Emotional Sadness

Besides being physically worn out, Elijah was emotionally wrought up. I use the word, emotional, interchangeably with the word, psychological. For the mind and the feelings are not mutually exclusive. There is not a person living who, from time to time, does not have to wrestle with their emotions. Actually, those people who claim that they have no problem controlling their emotions sometimes have the most problems with confined feelings that need to be released.

Now emotional or psychological depression is the type of depression that stems from unpleasant circumstances. Perhaps we have heard about the sudden death of a loved one. Perhaps we have just gotten news that we have terminal cancer. Your spouse of twenty-five years has just expressed that they don't love you anymore. Instantly your emotions can come crashing down like a plane that has lost all of its engines.

When this occurs, so often what we are inclined to do is to withdraw into a shell and throw a little pity party for ourselves. That is precisely what happened to Elijah. Interestingly, Elijah had every reason to be up, not down. He had just overcome the Prophets of Baal. God had responded to his prayer with fire from heaven, and had not only killed the Prophets of Baal, but had also sent a revival to his entire nation.

On the other hand, Jezebel then heard about it. She put out a "wanted dead - not alive" poster on Elijah. He got wind of it and ran for his life all alone out in the wilderness and began to bathe in the pool of self-pity. 1 Kings 19:4 declares, "But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die, and said, 'It is enough! Now, Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!'"

Elijah was like a lot of people who make suicidal threats, when they actually do not want to die. If Elijah had honestly wanted to die all he had to do was go see Jezebel. He was just floundering in self-pity. In truth, when things go wrong, when things don't go just the way we think they should, we occasionally tend to curl up in a fetal position and start talking about how awful things are and how unfair life is. We lie down in the bed of pity, pull the covers of depression up over our head, and just have a miserable ole time.

As a matter of fact, did you know that several of the other emotions that will later be addressed could prompt the emotion of depression? It was the fear of Jezebel that depressed Elijah. It was anger over the repentance of Nineveh that depressed Jonah. It was the stress of too much work that depressed Moses. It was guilt over sin that depressed David. It was bitterness against David that depressed King Saul. Although depression is more than just a feeling, it does unequivocally affect the feelings, and our feelings can bring on depression.

C. Spiritual Weakness

Not only was Elijah physically worn out and emotionally wrought up, but he also became spiritually run down. Depression had done two things to him. It had aggrandized his foe, and it had diminished his faith. Do you know how this happened? Satan is a compelling strategist. He is a great diplomat. He knows precisely when to attack you and where to attack you: when you are in a fit of self-pity, when you are bound by the chains of depression.

An old fable says that the devil once offered his tools for sale, intending to give up his business. He displayed these tools - malice, hatred, jealousy, deceit, and several others - with the prices marked on them. One of them was set apart, marked with a higher price than the others. When the devil was asked why this was, he said, "Because that is my most useful tool; it is called depression; with that I can do anything with people."[7]

One of the lessons we can learn from Elijah is this: At times we are down in the ditches of depression that we dug with our own hands. A lot of times depression is our own fault. Many times depression is merely a product of our own personal sin and shortcoming. So understand that you will never be at peace if you ignore something in your life that you know is against God's will (see 1 Timothy 1:19). Now and again depression is a spirit of heaviness that God brings upon His children to bring them to a point of recognizing their sin, and repenting of their sin.

III. The Cure For Depression

There is nothing wrong with getting depressed. There is nothing wrong with being depressed. On the other hand, there is something wrong with staying depressed.

God has not called us to struggle in the valley of depression. He has called us to succeed on the mountaintop of victory. I want to reiterate, there is nothing that Satan likes better than to see a soldier of the Cross too depressed to fight a battle, which has already been won.

Yet I want to encourage the discouraged, energize the criticized, and attempt to groom your gloom. I want you to understand that for every cause of depression there is a cure.

A. Physical Relaxation

God made a physical provision for Elijah. "Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and said to him, 'Arise and eat.' Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank, and lay down again" (1 Kings 19:5-6, NKJV). Now that is both precious and priceless. Elijah wanted to die, but God gave him a vacation. Then God gave him some bread from heaven's bakery, literally some "Angel Food Cake." Then he gave him some water from heaven's well. Then he gave him plenty of time to rest.[8]

The truth of the matter is, sometimes what we need for depression is simply some good old R & R - some rest and relaxation. God is the Great Physician. He knows more about health than anyone. God understands that you need to have a good balanced diet. You need to have a sensible amount of rest. No one, not even Superman, can always be running around, wearing themselves thin, breaking their health down. God's Word says it is vain to stay up late and to rise up early.

Someone once said, "I have so much to do today I simply must go back to bed." Sometimes that is the best thing we can do, just rest and relax.

B. Emotional Restoration

After Elijah was rested and relaxed, he was then ready to do business with God. God had healed him physically. Now God was ready to touch him emotionally. Elijah was still bent out of shape. His emotions were still twisted into knots. "So he said,'I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my life'" (1 Kings 19:10, NKJV).

But then observe what the Lord did. "Then He said, 'Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.' And behold the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice" (1 Kings 19:11-12, NKJV).

God took Elijah out into this wilderness, away from everybody and everything, so He could give him rest, relaxation, and then a fresh revelation of Himself. When God had the ear of Elijah, so He could speak to him, and the heart of Elijah, so He could sustain him, God then gave him a peace that passes all understanding, and his depression was cured. What God did for him, God can do for you.

C. Spiritual Revitalization

If your depression is a result of sin, and it may very well be, then you simply need to admit your sin, accept your forgiveness for that sin, and then adjust your outlook. Let me share with you some pieces of practical advice on how to defeat depression.

First of all, alter your goal. What I mean by that is, get your eyes off of yourself. Get your eyes off of your situation. Stop that pity party. Get your chin up, your head up, your eyes up, and concentrate on the Lord.

The Psalmist of old said, "I will lift up mine eyes to the hills - from whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth" (Psalm 121:1-2, NKJV). Read the Word of God. Receive the promises of God. For example, when you feel as if your heart is about to "break in two" because of the dagger of depression, consider Psalm 147:3, "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds."

The second piece of advice is this: Abandon your gloom. In other words, refuse to pull down the shades of self- pity. Don't just crawl up into your own cocoon and isolate yourself. Martin Luther was right when he said, "Isolation is poison for the depressed person. For through this the Devil attempts to keep him in his power."

I find it particularly interesting and informative that after God gave Elijah his rest and recreation, and refreshed him in his body and his mind, He then gave him something to do. If you continue to read the rest of 1 Kings 19, you will find where He told him to go to Damascus, anoint Jehu as king, and to preach His word.

The famous psychiatrist, Karl Menninger, suggests that the best way a lonely, unhappy person should deal with his depression is to "Lock the door behind you, go across the street, find someone who is hurting, and help him or her."

Let me share with you one final piece of advice when it comes to defeating depression. When you get depressed, abide in God. In other words, rely solely upon Him and remember, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble" (Psalms 46:1, NKJV).

For those of you who are depressed, you can defeat depression. For the same God that raised His Son, Jesus, from the dead can raise you from the trenches of depression and place your feet on solid rock.

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[1] "Today in the Word" (December 1989), 20.

[2] Adrian Rogers, "Dealing with Depression: A Message of Hope from the Word of God" (Memphis: Love Worth Finding Ministries, 2003), 4.

[3] H. Norman Wright, "Single Purpose: A Devotional for Singles" (Ventura: Gospel Light, 1997), 110- 111.

[4] James Merritt, "How to Get Up When You are Down." Accessed 11 March 2005 at http://www.sermonsearch.com/content.aspx?id=20592.

[5] Encyclopedia Britannica, s.v. "Depression." Accessed 28 October 2005 at http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9029988.

[6] Nelson L. Price, "Farewell to Fear" (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1983), 109-110. [7] "Satan's Tools." Accessed 28 October 2005 at http://lhmftw.org/satan.html.

[8] Rogers, 15.