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Perrine SDA Church

Eric Walsh

Mental Health in a Depressing World

I said, man, you sell this place now, you make a fortune.

So clearly the property value has gone up.

Also glad to see the school is still here and doing well.

There's literally probably nothing more important now than Christian education.

So I know how difficult that is for a church to do.

Pastor, I take my hat off to you and the team for holding down the fort on that, but it is a valuable resource in the community.

And so it's good to see that happening here.

Last time I was here, none of this was here.

So you guys have done a wonderful job sprucing up the place, as they say.

Let me see if I can figure out how to share this.

All right, so our scripture reading today will be taken from 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 7.

The Bible reads, For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Our message this Sabbath is entitled, Mental Health in a Depressing World.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to share your word.

I ask once again, Lord, that you make me just a nail upon the wall, a rusty, sorry nail, Lord.

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

Let me not be seen today, Lord, but instead, Father, let us hear a word from the throne room of grace.

If you have your Bible, you can turn with me to the book of First Kings.

And this is where we'll be coming from today for the most part.

1st Kings chapter 19 starting at verse 1.

1st Kings chapter 19 verse 1 and I'll read, And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and with all how he had slain all the prophets with the sword.

Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah saying, so let the gods do to me and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of 1 of them by tomorrow about this time.

We jump into the story of the life of Elijah after he had an incredible mountaintop experience.

Elijah as you would remember had gone to the top of the mountain to deal with the prophets of Baal.

And the prophets of Baal danced around and pretended as if they could conjure up more power than Elijah.

We'll come back to that but in the final analysis Elijah slays over 400 of the prophets of Baal and they had been brought into Israel by Ahab the king by his wife Jezebel and and and the only way to say this as you read this text is Jezebel was a gangster and we know this because in verse 2 the Bible says she doesn't send an assassin to Elijah, she sends him a messenger.

She didn't just want to kill Elijah, she wanted to terrorize him first.

If she just wanted to kill him she could have just sent the assassin and it would have been over she sends someone to let him know death is coming that's gangster then she says the messenger tells him so let the gods do to me and more also if I make not thy life as the life of 1 of them by tomorrow about this time so she says you have 24 hours to live Elijah in 24 hours you're a dead man you're a dead man.

Verse 3, and when he saw that Elijah heard and what the messenger says, The Bible says he arose and my Bible tells me he went for his life, meaning Elijah ran for his life.

Fear gripped Elijah, terror took over and he took to running in a way that you don't see often in the Bible.

The Bible says he came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah.

I mean, like you're so scared in Miami, you run to Canada for safety.

He went to Beersheba in Judah, and he was so afraid, he didn't even take his servant with him.

He left his servant there and kept running.

Why do you, see, some of y'all know about this kind of stuff.

You wanna make sure when Jezebel people catch up, they get to your servant and kill him and don't know where you went.

It's always easier to track 2 people than 1.

The level of his fear is such that he leaves his servant and he goes another day's journey into the wilderness.

Here's where the story gets interesting because this is where some of us wind up.

The Bible says here, and he came and sat under a juniper tree and here it is here's the here's the key line of this of the whole sermon of from scripture it's here it's a potent word it's a word you don't see often only twice does this happen in the entire Bible it says and he came and sat down under a juniper tree, here it is, and he requested for himself that he might die.

Who's the other prophet that requests that he die?

But Jonah was on something different, a very different story.

And he requested for himself that he might die.

And then he, look at this, he says, and says, it is enough now, O Lord.

Take away my life, for I am not better than my father's.

So he knew where to go where he could go and hide and lay and not be bothered by snakes in the wilderness.

But I wanna submit to you that some of us, many of us are having a juniper tree experience right now.

Some of us are under the juniper tree because we are in fear of life or some aspect of life.

Some of us are having a juniper tree experience because life has not gone the way we planned.

Things are more difficult than we thought and and so we have run, we have left our servant and run another day into the wilderness.

And some of us are rattling, struggling with the depressive thoughts, the difficult thoughts where you say that you might request for yourself that you might die.

He's burned out so bad that his conversation with God is such to say, listen, it's alright Lord, it's okay, if you want to put me to sleep right now, I'm fine, put me to sleep, it's better that way.

Israel was at the time in trouble, the Northern Kingdom is in blue, the Southern Kingdom in gold, he left the blue of the gold of the Northern Kingdom, ran into the Southern Kingdom, The northern kingdom, how interesting the story is, the northern kingdom when you read the Old Testament never has a righteous king.

And it of course is ultimately taken away by the Assyrians.

Just to give you some perspective biblically of where we are, I like this diagram, and I encourage you when you read your Bible to find these diagrams online so that you can pinpoint the timeline of scripture.

It comes together much better when you understand that.

I bring this up to show you that of the prophets of the kingdoms Elijah is the first 1 he's the 1 that takes the brunt he's the 1 who discovers how difficult it is when the people of God have organized themselves into a kingdom in this case but could be also a church how difficult it is to preach truth to God's people.

Let me tell you something, it's not an easy thing to do.

There are a lot of folk who want preachers who preach unto them smooth things.

They want teachers who will give the day who have itching ears.

The church, let me tell you something, 1 of the 1 of the sad things happening in our church now is that there is an influx of false doctrine coming in from all quarters and a lot of folk aren't willing to have the tough conversations we must stand on a thus sayeth the Lord how bad was it Well if you go back to 1st Kings 16, I'll go through these verses quickly.

Verse 30, and Ahab the son of Amri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him.

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Mental Health in a Depressing World

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