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Newington Three Angels Church

Go and Do: New England Conference Youth Week of Prayer

Eric Walsh

01 Finding God in a Godless Society

02 Lifestyle of Faith

04 Test of Purity

03 Prophecy and Purpose

05 Overdosed

06 Playing with Darkness

07 Time Crunch

Our scripture reading is taken from 1 Peter 5 and verse 8.

It was a transcribed wrong, and so Corinthians was read.

But it's 1 Peter 5 and verse 8, which says, Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.

Our message tonight is entitled Overdosed.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word once again.

I pray now, Lord, that you make me once again just a nail on the wall.

But upon that nail, I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

So we're asking for an extra portion of your Holy Spirit.

This is our prayer in Jesus's precious and holy name, amen.

All right, so we're gonna get right into this.

And normally, if you follow the patterns of my sermons, I start with a Bible story.

And I weave in the concepts into that Bible story.

Tonight, I'm going to do something a little different by starting with a testimony.

When I was working as a physician in California, I won't even say where in California I was, I had a patient come to see me.

He was about 31 years of age, if I remember correctly.

It was a Thursday, Thursday afternoon, and he was having some upper respiratory symptoms, a little mild cough, some runny nose.

This was pre-COVID, so no 1 was panicking or running for the corners.

And he came in to be seen and we talked for a while.

I actually knew his parents and had kind of worked with them before, and knew that he had some struggles in the past with drugs and alcohol.

In fact, he was a very talented football player when he was in high school.

And he had a serious injury in high school.

I think it might have been like he tore a ligament significantly in 1 of his knees.

He had to have surgeries and so forth and rehab.

And in that process, of course, he was given pain medication.

Well, what we now know, the science shows, is if you simply take pain medication, narcotic pain medication, let me be clear, as prescribed, after 7 days, it's enough to become dependent on it or addicted to it.

And so this young man since high school had been struggling on and off with a pretty significant, serious, life-altering drug addiction problem.

I don't know how much he drank, but he drank, he did drugs, he never finished college, He was having a very hard time with life.

Fortunately for him, his parents were pretty well off, so they were able to use him, find ways to keep him active and working.

And when I saw him, he had been back working for about 6 months.

He had actually completed before that 6 months of rehab, and it may have run concurrently, as rehab.

And so he had been clean and sober, as I remember clearly, 6 months before I saw him.

And because he had these symptoms and didn't feel very well, and it was a Thursday, I said, listen, it's Thursday afternoon, you're not gonna go back to work today anyway.

And as he and I were talking, and I went to prepare his note so he could be off of work, The Holy Spirit began to tell me that I should pray with this young man.

And the urge to pray with him was actually quite strong.

I was busy and I said, I don't want to offend this guy by asking him if he wants to pray.

When I came to work Monday morning, 1 of the nurses came to me and said, did you hear what happened?

She mentioned the patient by name and said that something terrible had happened over the weekend.

The day he had off, it seems as if he took license to take the free time and somehow stumbled back into someone or went somewhere where his drug of choice was available.

What I know is that that Saturday, he went and got those drugs and took the same amount he always took.

He took that Saturday night And he never woke up Sunday morning.

And even as I think about it, I'm very sad because I know the pain his parents went through, that his girlfriend went through.

His friends from high school that he grew up in that area, and the damage that it did to so many.

It's always brought back, brought back to the fact that the Spirit of God seemed to be pressing me to pray with him, and I failed to do that.

I don't know if I'd prayed with him if it would have made any difference.

But I will tell you that what I've learned as a physician, and part of my training at Loma Linda when I was doing my preventive medicine residency, part of that training was in the area of addiction medicine.

And young people, I want to tell you that, literally, there is singularly no force on earth that is a physical or chemical, organic source that is more damaging than drugs and alcohol.

If Satan has designed a win, he has designed a win in the arena of drugs and alcohol.

Countless, countless Lives are ruined, families shattered, dreams abated, drugs and alcohol, and yet we live in a society that doesn't just legalize these things, they glamorize it.

And if you are going to be a child of the living God, 1 of the things you're gonna have to understand is twofold.

1, the dangers that these things cause you, and secondly, how it is that you approach those who have these problems.

We'll talk about both of those things tonight as we look at America's big problems.

So issue brief reports of increase in opioid and other drug-related overdose and other concerns during the COVID pandemic.

This was just the American Medical Association just put this out earlier this month.

What we found is that during this pandemic, there has been a whole hidden pandemic.

These are called the diseases of despair, suicides, drug overdoses, even fatty alcoholic liver disease from the amount of excess alcohol that has been consumed.

Churches were considered non-essential and closed, but liquor stores were considered essential and stayed open.

And so many people actually, and I've heard people at work, I've heard people, patients say this, they literally fill the void of not going out to work or church or wherever, with bottles and bottles and bottles of alcohol.

What is interesting is that a recent report says that although this thing has been horrible, and predominantly the opioid epidemic has actually affected suburban and rural white families more than even urban families.

However, what's interesting is, 1 report I read is that last year, African Americans actually did outpace in the realm of overdose deaths.

And I'll say this, it is a true supply and demand issue.

Part of the reason America is always going to have a drug problem is because America does not have a drug supply problem.

We're gonna talk about why that is a bit tonight as well.

Well, which countries consume the most opioids?

When you look at how many doses are given, this I think is per million people.

But most of these are developed, wealthy countries, all the way down the list, ending with Spain.

And we'll talk more about how this came to be, but this is significant.

Opioid overdose deaths, this is even before the pandemic, you see that it has taken off.

What is going on that people are literally doing drugs to the point where it takes their life.

That these types of things are happening?

Well, we talked earlier this week about the frontal lobe, And this is the part of the brain that is like the most holy place.

This is the part of the brain that Satan is putting under siege.

When Peter says, be sober, be vigilant, he is speaking to how sharp your mind must be because sobriety is the opposite of intoxication.

And you don't just get intoxicated on drugs without first, or on some level, becoming intoxicated with the world.

And I don't mean you get intoxicated in a world that you want a fast life and you're looking to stay high all the time, but even the pain of this world can intoxicate you to the point where people begin to self-medicate with drugs.

Series

Go and Do: New England Conference Youth Week of Prayer

05 Overdosed

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

The Mind of Christ

05 Marking the Mind

53m

Eric Walsh: Rumbles in the Mind

Mind Numbing, Soul Shocking: The Pathophysiology of Addiction

23m

Mental Health

05 The United States of Addiction

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The United States of Addiction Winning America’s Chemical Civil War

52m

Experience The Power

Come Out and Stay Out

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Bold unto the Throne Seminars

Mental Health in Relation to Addiction

1h 7m

Alan & Nicole Parker: Love Me, Love Me Not

Overcoming Addictions

51m

What is Grace?

33m

The Time of Destiny

52m

Seminar: From Darkness to Light: Overcoming Sin and Addictions

Rescuing “P.O.W’s” (Reaching People with Addictions)- Part 1

49m

The Time Is Near

53m

Alan Parker ~ Biblical Holiness: A Guide for Sinners

Soul Hunger: Why Hollywood Hurts Your Holiness

1h

Sound Doctrine