Adrian Rogers: How to Deal with Depression

• The Severe Problem of Depression
• The Spiritual Provision for Depression

If you study the history of the Christian church, you’ll find out that some of God’s greatest saints have gone through a tar d night of depression.
Over 8 million Americans are so depressed, they can’t cope. They miss work.
They drop out. Many of them name the name of Christ.
Many of God’s choicest of saints have gone through periods of deep darkness and they couldn’t understand why.
And David was one of them. And the very verse that he tells God that God is his rock.
He’s also saying, God, I don’t understand someone as well said that life is not a problem to be solved.
It is a mystery to be lived.
Take God’s word and find Psalm 42 when you found it.
Look up here, what Psalm 42 deals with is depression and what to do when you’re feeling depressed.
When you say I have fallen and I can’t get up, not, not physically but emotionally.
You’re down in the dumps, you’re in despair, you’re depressed.
Will you say that’s never happened to me? Pastor? Well, just hang on, hang on.
You say, well, I am a Christian. If you study the history of the Christian church.
You’ll find out that some of God’s greatest saints have gone through a tar deep night of depression.
Well, let’s look in this psalm. Look if you will.
In verse 42 the Psalms chapter 42 verse five, David asked this question, why art thou cast down?
Oh my soul. And why aren’t thou disquieted in me? He’s talking here about depression.
The severe problem of depression, depression really can be a killer disease in the study that I’ve done.
I found out that depression is the second or third leading cause of death in some age groups.
Not a bit uncommon to see a spouse die shortly after his or her mate has died.
Now, I wanna say this, that David wrote this song, the sweet singer of Israel, the man after God’s own heart.
And he says, why aren’t thou cast down? Oh my soul?
He’s speaking to himself, the man of God.
Now, David, I, I assume that David wrote this Psalm, you know, others than David wrote Psalms.
Also, there’s no subscription that says, who wrote it? But I assume that David wrote it.
And if he did write it, he had plenty of reason to be depressed.
I mean, after all, David had a son that rebelled against him, the son that he loved with all of his heart.
And then this rebellious son also is killed and David now is deposed as the king, he’s had to flee for his life.
He’s living like a, like a partridge on the mountainside, hunted, he has no power, he has no possession.
He’s been deposed, he sinned against God. He’s committed a horrible sin.
He’s lost a child by death.
He’s had a daughter that was raped, a son who had done the dastardly deed.
He had a wife that was raped.
Now another son killed, the nation is in turmoil outwardly.
He had some reason to be depressed.
And as you look at this psalm and as you study this psalm, you’ll find out that, that, that the man who wrote this psalm gives almost a clinical case of severe depression.
Look at it verses one and two as the heart pan after the water brooks.
So my soul after the oh God, my soul thirst for God for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God write down spiritual dryness, spiritual dryness.
Here’s a man who says, God, I’m so thirsty for you, but I can’t find you.
I am like a deer hunted by a pack of wild dogs.
God, where are you? God? Have you forgotten me?
Look, if you will in verse nine, I will say to God my rock, why has thou forgotten me?
Now, God had not forgotten me and God has not forgotten you, but he felt like God had forgotten him.
I was talking to a preacher who had been in the church for a long time and they weren’t treating him too well.
And he, he said, I, I know that God put me here.
But I just wonder if He remembers where he put me. That’s what David. David felt.
God, you have forgotten me. There’s a, a spiritual dryness and then there he, he’s on continual crying jags.
Look, if you will. In verse three, my tears have been my meat.
That is my food day and night while they continually saying to me, where is thy God?
Continued crying? Jags. Now we all cry. Well, we all have sorrow.
We all have heartaches that comes.
But that’s not depression, the sorrows, the normal tears that we all shed. That’s like a thunderstorm.
But when a person gets in depression, it’s like a front that moves through and just camps overhead and it’s just a continual drizzle.
Just a continual dropping. That’s that, that, that’s that sorrow where my my tears been my food day and night.
Look again, if you will. In verse three, he has a sense of shame and defeat.
Look in the last part while they continually saying to me, where is thy God?
He has a feeling that He’s, he’s let God down has a feeling that He is such a miserable example of a Christian.
He feels so ashamed. He has no witness. He has no testimony.
What a sense of guilt he has over that right?
Spiritual dryness, continue crying, feeling of shame.
And then that’s compounded by lingering memories of what used to be lingering memories.
Look, if you will in verse four, when I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me for I had gone with the multitude.
I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise with a multitude that kept holy day.
He’s looking backward, looking backward to some better time.
When he used to have joy, used to have peace satisfaction, friends and fellowship and worship.
And it was so real to him.
And now it’s only a memory that haunts him and he thinks that never can be this way again.
And that just makes the sadness of the presence the present all the worse because it’s set against this background and the sum total of all of that is just overwhelming circumstances.
Yes. Look in verses six and 70 my God, my soul is cast down within me.
Therefore, will I remember the from the land of Jordan underscore that and from and of the Hermon from the hill, Zar deep call under deep at the noise of thy water spouts all thy waves and billows are going over me.
What is the imagery here? This is poetry, but what’s he talking about?
He’s having thoughts of death.
He talks of Jordan Jordan in Bible typology speaks of death.
Jordan starts up there at Mount Herman, beautiful snow capped all year round.
It bubbles up there and comes and trickles down and it runs that torturous route down to the dead sea.
The dead sea, 1300 ft below sea level at its surface and 1300 ft deep, the lowest spot on the face of the earth and the river Jordan runs down from the snow capped mountains of Mount Herman all the way down to the dead sea and it buries itself there never to rise again.
And uh Jordan speaks of death.
He says, all thy water spouts have gone over me.
What, what, what does he mean by water spouts? He’s talking about waterfalls. I’ve been up there.
They had waters of the Jordan, one of the most beautiful waterfalls you will ever see on this earth is right up there.
I stood there and looked at that torrential water coming out.
David says this, this river of death has come over me.
He’s thinking about death, I believe.
And when you get despondent enough, you, you think maybe death would be a welcome release.
That’s, that’s, that’s the way David was saying.
He saying, God, all your water spouse have come over me.
I feel the chilly waters of Jordan washing over me.
He’s depressed. Why aren’t thou cast down?
Oh my soul, the severe problem of depression.
Now the spiritual provision for depression. Do we have to be depressed?
Is there no hope? Have we fallen? And indeed can we not get up?
No, there is hope. I want you to see first of all, what you need to do when you’re depressed, now, you may not be clinically depressed.
Now, you may be on the margin, you may be on the bubble, you may be just mildly depressed.
You may be just having a bad day. But this will apply to you wherever you are on that continuum.
Number one, look inward with a firm look.
Notice verses five and six. Why aren’t thou cast down on my soul? Why aren’t thou disquiet in me?
Hope thou in God for, I shall yet praise Him for the help of his countenance.
Oh my God, my soul is cast down within me.
Therefore, will I remember the from the land of Jordan and of the Hermans from the Hill Zar?
And what does he say? He’s beginning to look inward.
He’s beginning to talk to himself.
His soul is the, is the man, the person, the soul, the mind, the emotion and the will.
I mean, he has an inward look and it is a firm look.
Why are you cast down? Oh my soul.
He just talks back to himself. Have you ever talked back to yourself? Do you ever talk to yourself?
One man said, I’m concerned about my wife. She always talks to herself.
His friend says, does she know she’s doing it?
He says, oh no, she thinks I’m listening to her.
Do you, do you ever talk to yourself?
You ought to, I mean, it’s, you’re not you’re not wacko.
If you do that, David is talking to himself.
He is taking a firm n word. Look, he’s doing some spiritual analysis.
He’s asking himself this question. Why am I depressed? Why am I depressed?
You need to ask yourself that question.
You can answer it perhaps better than anybody else because nobody knows you like you.
One man knows the spirit of man, save the spirit of man, that’s in him.
The things a man say, the spirit of madness in him.
So you need to look yourself in the face and ask yourself this question.
Why am I depressed and be honest?
Second, look, you need to take, look inward with a firm look and then look upward with a faith.
Look, look if you will in verses seven through nine, deep caller, deep at the noise of I water spouts that is the deepest emotions of my heart are crying out to you.
Oh my God, all thy waves and billows are going over me yet the Lord will command his loving kindness in the daytime and in the night, his song shall be with me and my prayer unto the God of my life.
Here’s the key verse verse nine, I will say unto God, my rock, look upward with a fake look, whether you understand it or not, whether you’ve analyzed it correctly or not.
Look to him because he will never fail you.
What I’m trying to say to you is this.
Don’t get the idea that God doesn’t care about you.
The very hairs of your head are numbered. He is your God.
And if nobody else understands you, if you don’t have a friend anywhere, if you cannot see a solution, he will not fail you.
When you take the inward look, then take the upward look and look to him. This is not a platitude.
I’m not just trying to tell you something that a preacher might say that doesn’t work.
I am telling you that your hope is God and you need to look to Him in faith.
If you put your faith anywhere else, sooner or later, you’re going down, you, you, you better tie your life to something that can stand.
There is a rock and that rock is God himself. He cannot, he will not be moved.
Now you say, well, Pastor Rogers, do you mean if I come to God in all my troubles?
He’ll explain it to me. And I’ll understand. No, you may not understand.
Look in verse nine, I will say unto God my rock. Why have you forgotten me? In other words?
Here he is. He’s saying David. David is so wise in this song.
He’s saying, Lord, I don’t understand why, why have you, why have you left me like this?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones?
My enemies reproach me. Why they say daily on me. Where is thy God now?
You know, as a pastor, there’s one question that I’m asked over and over again when I meet people in depression, they say pastor, why, why did this happen?
Why, why did my husband die? Why, why did I lose my job? Why did the doctor, why, why, why?
Well, why is not your question is how, why is God’s question?
How are you going to react? That’s, that’s your question. God’s ways are not your ways.
Many of God’s choicest of saints have gone through periods of deep darkness and they couldn’t understand why.
And David was one of them. And the very verse that He tells God that God is his rock.
He’s also saying, God, I don’t understand.
Someone has well said that life is not a problem to be solved.
It is a mystery to be lived, not a problem, to be solved. A mystery to be lived.
And Warren Wisby has reminded us that we do not live by explanations, we live by promises.
So many other people, you know, they, they figure, well, if there is a God, why is he letting me down?
He’s not let you down. As a matter of fact, if there’s something that has happened to you, you cannot understand think what an incredible opportunity for trust that is in you, Robert Frost, I think said it perfectly.
He said it was of the essence of the trial that you shouldn’t understand it at the time, it had to have unmeaning to have meaning.
It was of the essence of the trial that you couldn’t understand it.
It had to have unmeaning to have meaning. You said pastor, I don’t think I understand that.
What, what he is saying is that if God explains it all to you, it kind of ceases to be a trial.
But if you say God, I don’t understand it. Lord, why have you forsaken me yet? You’re my rock.
Then you’re coming to the place that job came to when he said though he slay me yet.
Shall I trust him? Now? Thirdly and finally, and quickly look, take the inward look.
The firemen would look, take the faith upward look and finally take it a focused onward.
Look, notice verse 11. Why art thou cast down on my soul?
And why aren’t thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God for I shall yet praise Him.
That’s He’s looking to the future. I am coming out. I do have a hope.
I will hope in God no matter how bleak it is, no matter how dark it is, no matter how despairing it is.
I will hope in God. And I have hope for in the only two places where there is no hope.
One is in heaven when you don’t need it because faith has turned a reality and the other is in hell where people have no hope.
But as long as there is a God. There is hope.
And I wanna tell you today if you’re depressed and look listening to me hoping God say your Lord my rock and I will yet praise you by your grace and your time you turn every hurt to a.
Hallelujah. Every tear to a pearl, every midnight to sunrise and every calvary to an Easter.
I will yet praise you.
I will and don’t you lose hope may be that God is taking everything else away from you to cause you to trust in Him and hope in Him alone to bring you to the verse 11.
Why are thou cast down on my soul? Why are thou disquieted in me?
Hope thou in God for I shall yet praise Him. Saint Augustine asked this question.
It’s one of the most penetrating questions I’ve ever heard.
He said, suppose God were to come to you and God would offer you a contract to deal.
God would say to you, you can have whatever you want.
You will live everlastingly. You will have all power.
Every longing will be satisfied. Nothing will be a sin to you.
Nothing will be forbidden to you.
You can have everything you want as much as you want.
Joy, peace, long life, success, everlasting life.
You can have anything you want.
With this one exception, you will never see my face.
Augustine ask, would you take that deal?
And He said, if you would say no, then you have the pure love of God.
But he said, if a, if a, if a chill went over your soul, when you heard that phrase, you will never see my face.
He said, thank God because you’re saying God means more to me in all this world and all the universes put together.
You see, I don’t think that God is really finished with us until our chief delight is God alone.
And when our chief delight is God alone, no matter how dark, how deep, how dismal, how despairing when God and God alone is our chief desire.
And we’ll say, I don’t care what happens.
He is God and I will yet praise him and see his face.
Take a firm inward look, take a faith upward, look and take a focused future. Look.
If you’re depressed, I beg you in the name of Jesus.
Don’t let Satan blow out the light of hope in your heart and in your life.
He is not finished with you less bower hid in prayer heads about and eyes are closed.
If you would like to know this God, no one moving please.
If you would like to know this God, if you’d like to be saved, I want to invite you to pray a prayer like this dear God.
I know that you love me and I know that you want to save me, Jesus.
I believe you’re the son of God.
I believe Lord Jesus that you paid for my sin with your blood on that cross.
I believe that God raised you from the dead.
You promised if I would trust you, you would save me. And I do trust you.
Would you tell him that I do trust you right now with all of my heart, come into my heart?
Forgive my sin, save me, Lord Jesus. Pray it to me, save me, Lord Jesus.
Did you ask him now? I want you to seal it by praying this Lord Jesus.
I am trusting you to save me and because I’m trusting you, I’ll make it public.
I’ll not be ashamed of you because you died for me in your name.
I put, I mean.