GYC 2025: Seeing the Invisible

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Addiction in the Last Days: Breaking the Invisible Chains on the Mind

Eric Walsh

01 A Generation Addicted: Drugs, Demons, and a Rising Death Toll

Let's pray and let's get right into this.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to talk on these sensitive, difficult issues, Lord.

But we thank you, Lord, because you have a remedy for sin and addiction.

And so, Lord, we are asking right now for Holy Ghost power.

We are asking Lord for angels to dwell with us in this room.

Angels that excel in wisdom and strength.

And I am praying right now Lord that chains begin to be broken just as we study this subject.

So Lord, there are some in here who have family members who are suffering from addiction or addictive behaviors, Lord, and there are others that may be suffering themselves.

What matters today is that you have the key that can unlock any chain and Set anyone free who's willing to come to you.

So Lord as we study this today Lord We're just asking again for Holy Spirit power that he would lead us into truth.

So the overall topic for the day is addiction in the last days And our first session is called A Generation Addicted, Drugs, Demons, and a Rising Death Toll.

Let me start with a story from my practice.

I was practicing in California, and a young man came in on a Thursday with a cold or flu symptoms.

I basically told him, you know, go home, drink fluids, get some rest.

And he asked me to take him off the Friday, so it's Thursday, so I took him out of work on Friday and seemed like no big deal.

And of course, I knew, because I'd seen him before, in his chart that he had overcome opiates.

He had been clean and sober for 6 months when I saw him.

But When he went home that day and had the day off, in his boredom, temptation snuck up on him and that Saturday he went and got Street drugs, heroin.

Now his addiction began when he played football in high school, hurt his knee, and they gave him Vicodin and Norcoz, which are pretty potent narcotic pain medicines.

And If you just take those medicines for 7 days, almost anyone will develop a habit or become dependent on it.

If you just take the narcotic pain medicines, the way they're prescribed, usually by day 7, you will have a dependence on those medicines.

And that's what happened to this young man.

Obviously, you all heard in the news how much trouble there is with opiates.

So all of us doctors and hospital assistants, everybody stopped prescribing.

And I'm going to talk to you about why we got into this opiate mess in the first place.

And so that Saturday, he actually goes back and finds heroin to take.

And because he had been clean and sober for 6 months, He goes back and takes the amount of heroin he took 6 months earlier.

So he just tried to jump right back in where he was, and he overdosed at home and he died.

When I came to work on Monday, I was blown away that the person I saw died.

Now let me tell you what really gave me pause.

And if you guys are in the back and you want to sit up front, there are seats up here.

So don't feel embarrassed, just come right on down.

What made me feel bad is that when I was seeing him, I had an, God impressed me that I should pray with him.

But I was so busy that day and I was like, well, I'll see him again, I'll talk to him again, and I didn't pray with him.

What hurt me that Monday morning when they told me what happened is that I missed the opportunity to pray over this brother before he went and overdosed.

I tell you that story because this thing, it's for real.

It doesn't take much for drugs and alcohol to actually take someone's life as we're going to see.

And so what I want us to do as we discuss this is I'm gonna really lay out the problem, how it happens, but we're also gonna lay out at the end of the day, kind of proactive steps to fighting addiction.

What can you do in your home, in your family, in your community, if you're trying to help someone or if you suffer yourself.

So let's let's get into this a little more and I want to read 1st Thessalonians 5 because tomorrow morning we're really going to look at this from a spiritual standpoint.

There is a reason the devil wants us all addicted to stuff.

1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 6 says, Therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us do what?

Watch and be sober for they that sleep in the night and and they that be drunken are drunken in the night but let us who are of the day be sober putting on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet what the hope of salvation this text really sums it all up and it speaks to this addicted generation.

Now, the talk is called Drugs, Demons, and a Rising Death Toe and to get to it, we really jump here.

2 Timothy 3, 1 says, This know also that in the last days, what?

There has never, for young people in the room, you must understand that in all of Earth's history, it has never been more difficult to be a young person and try and follow God than in 2026.

In all of human history it has never been as difficult because never in human history has the technology and availability of evil and wicked influences been so close.

So close that we go to an iPhone shop or a Galaxy phone shop, wherever you get your phone from and We buy a portal for the devil to influence us with.

We literally pay it and every month we make a payment so that in our pocket or in our purse, all day, every day, the devil has access to us.

For men shall be lovers of their own selves we'll go back over these verses again again later covetous boasters proud blasphemers disobedient to parents unthankful unholy without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are what?

In the last days, if you are good, you will be despised.

Unfortunately, too many of us think we're gonna be good and the world still like us.

Paul then says, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures, more than what?

In that statement, Paul, who is at this time writing to Timothy from a Roman dungeon about to be put to death by Nero he is warning Nero of end time addiction lovers of pleasures more than what more than lovers of God having a form of godliness but what denying the power thereof from such turn away Peer pressure is 1 of the reasons people sink into addiction so quickly and heavily.

What is it that's missing in that last group in that sentence?

There is another power at work in these people in the last days.

I want to submit to you that once you have sided with Satan and stepping into bad habits and addictions, you give him a control over you that he is not easily going to let go of.

You have walked yourself into this and by default you must deny the power of God because once you accept the power of God you can't stay in bondage.

All right so we talked about this 1 let me jump here.

So I wanted to put this up, this is a face of all the celebrity, well, not all of them.

Many of the celebrities who have died of overdose.

I do, 1 of my favorite people up there is the most talented singer I think in a generation maybe in many generations Whitney Houston.

Why do celebrities die from drug overdose like this and I mean you go all the way back to Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, Jimi Hendrix, Why does it happen?

When you make that kind of money, you run out of life before you run out of the means to continue your addiction.

The reason a lot of people actually sober up is they hit rock bottom.

But when you have all these resources, the other thing is the devil sets these folk up as people for us to imitate.

And what he does, he sets us up to imitate them and 1 of the behaviors they want us to imitate is their smoking and drinking drug using and sexual corruption right so he uses celebrity that I mean very sad slide when you look at all those lives lost too early.

It is a chronic relapsing brain disorder characterized by compulsive behaviors and loss of control despite harmful consequences.

It encompasses substance related and behavioral addictions, gambling, social media.

02 The Brain on Drugs: How the Devil Chains the Mind

03 The New Drug: Pornography and Sex Addiction

And again, this is probably 1 of the more challenging topics even for me to speak on.

If I'm going to deal with this topic Sometimes when I'm at a church, the car starts having the rental car has problems.

The devil really does not like for this subject to be broached.

The scripture for this third session, Matthew 5 and verse 27 says, You've heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery.

But I say unto you that whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.

So our message for this third session is the new drug, pornography and sex addiction.

Father god, we thank you for this opportunity to study a word and to deal with these challenging issues.

I am asking in a special way lord for holy ghost power.

I ask again lord that you just make me a nail on 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 or heard lord instead father, let us hear a word from the throne room of grace.

All right, come on in have a seat and here's where we're gonna go.

If you have your Bible you want to jump to 2nd Samuel chapter 11, 2nd Samuel chapter 11 and I will read the Bible says and it came to pass after the years was expired at the time when kings go forth to battle that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel and they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Rama but David tarried still at Jerusalem.

So before we get into this subject of sexual addiction pornography David is David.

David's the guy who when he would return from battle with Saul, the women would sing, David has killed his, Saul has killed his thousands, but David has killed his tens of thousands.

He's supposed to be in battle, leading the people as the king, and instead he's back at the palace.

Verse 2, And it came to pass in the eventide that David arose from off his bed and walked upon the roof of the king's house and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.

Now you know David had many women, wives, so he probably, he may have even gotten off a bed with 1 of his wives.

The Bible says David goes to the roof of the palace, looks off the roof, and sees a woman there washing herself the Bible says she was very beautiful to look upon this is a rooftop experience but not the good kind David sees this woman and he is instantaneously attracted to the woman.

The Bible says and he sent and inquired after the woman and 1 said is not this Bathsheba the daughter of Eliam 1 of David's counselors the wife of Uriah the Hittite his 1 of his main soldiers they're like wait a minute don't you know who this woman is I mean literally her father is someone you know her husband is someone you trust don't do you realize who you're talking about and the Bible says and David sent messengers and took her and she came in unto him and he lay with her for she was purified from her uncleanness.

That means the bath that she was doing at the beginning of the story was the bath that would happen after a woman would come off her monthly cycle.

It was a statement that she could be she was she was often more fertile.

And also her desire levels might be higher.

And so she was purified of her uncleanness and she returned unto her house.

Most a lot of men don't want to hear this 1.

And the woman conceived and sent and told David and said I am with child.

Can you Imagine the shock that ran through King David.

Here's a man who brought down a giant with a stone, and all it took for him to be brought down was for him to look inappropriately at a woman.

So for us, the smartphone has brought in digital rooftops.

You have a way to stand on the roof like he did and look out and see what you ought not see.

And you don't have to climb on top of your house, you no longer have to be a peeping Tom, you don't have to go to the store and buy girly magazines, all of it can be done with a simple device.

How do people go into these forms of sin?

It is often connected to a societal problem.

Ezekiel 16 49 says, Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom.

What was the number 1 sin of Sodom pride that interesting fullness of bread and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy she was idle They were laying around on their bed up on a rooftop like David when they were supposed to be doing something look at verse 50 and they were haughty and committed abomination before me a Bible.

Then God says, therefore I took them away as I saw good pride and idleness leads to abomination The practice of abomination.

Now I don't have time to get into it but We know there was something they call the sexual revolution.

In fact, it made it so that basically trying to describe sex to you as if it's just a physical activity, like going to play ball or do gymnastics.

And in that process, many have been deceived.

Why is the intimate act of sexual relations sacred?

Because it is the only way God designed for procreation to happen.

This is puberty trends and this is up to 2000, but you can see Germany, France, United States.

You go back far enough, young girls would not start menarche.

Menarche is the age at which a girl has her first period.

It would not happen till they were over 16 years of age.

If you go back far enough, how old would a young lady be when she got married?

So by the time she was able to have children, she was getting married, her desire, hormonal desire, matched about that time.

Over time what's happened is the age of onset of puberty has fallen precipitously so that today in America, the average age a girl starts menarche, has menarche, is 12 years old.

The average age for African American girls is 9 years old.

So you say, man, these girls look more like women than girls.

Well, we know less body fat, It's the fat cells leptin that release, is released that triggers the body to go into puberty.

And so that's 1 of the things that has changed.

So that goes back to the kind of the modern standard American diet, Western diet.

Exposure to sexual content might stimulate this to start earlier.

If you've ever had chickens and you put chickens under lights, the chickens make eggs faster, sooner, right?

So some have argued maybe it's the electrical lights that everybody's always under lights now.

I don't know if that's true but it's an interesting theory.

In fact I said that at a Jamaican church, where most of the people were Jamaican here in the States, but a predominantly Jamaican church, I said that in church.

I was talking about how some people think of the electric lights and a Jamaican man stood up, started storming out of church.

He said, I'm going home to cut off the lights, I have 3 daughters.

As you go into puberty, it is a sign that you are able to reproduce, or coming towards the age of where you can reproduce.

04 Healing the Brain After Addiction: The Power of Our Health Message

05 Sobriety and the End of Time: The Need of a Clear Mind to Avoid Deception

Let's get into God's Word for this morning.

And just to give a recap before I read the verse and pray.

So this session has been on addiction and it's been about how the devil uses these chemical substances behaviors.

And with the advent of legalized sports gambling, there are reports now that some of the young men in college campuses are really losing a lot of money over gambling because you can legally do it now.

And we talked about how marijuana's different from every other drug.

Marijuana works on both the presynaptic and the postsynaptic aspects of the dopaminergic system of the dopamine nerves.

And so by doing that, it actually is a gateway drug.

And as we're gonna talk a little bit about today, marijuana also opens up the mind for spiritualism and demonism.

This is why there are religions like Rastafarianism and others and some of the practices of Hinduism, which is actually where Rastafarians, a lot of them don't notice, that's where they get that practice actually from.

And it is to open up your mind so spirits will come in.

And so that you're open to this to the spirit world.

We talked about marijuana and alcohol how they may how they change your ability to make wise decisions and of course we we had a whole session where we really focused on sexual sin, pornography.

And as I travel around, this is 1 of the biggest, I think this is 1 of the things that is really going to destroy many in the remnant church.

Sexual sin for sure, Ellen White talks extensively about it and uses the analogy back to Baal Peor where Balaam and Balak conspired against the children of Israel and the men of Israel fell.

Always when it comes to sexual sin the devil starts with the men.

The sexual revolution started with magazines like Playboy and Penthouse, all designed to make men give up the Victorian ideas about sex, traditional ideas about sex, intimacy, commitment, and pervert men.

Once you pervert the men, almost by default, the women fall in line.

In fact, as much as I celebrate that the feminist movement is very much against pornography, feminism basically said that whatever a man does, a woman should be able to do.

And hence, the curse carried from the men of Western society to the women of Western society.

And so that now We talked yesterday about the fact that in churches, when they did a poll on Christians, 75% of the men, 70 or 75% of the men said they used pornography, 40% of the women.

And that more than half of those who said they used pornography said they actually have no problem with it.

And once you do that you fulfill the prophecy of 2nd Timothy 3 5 where it says that they have the form of godliness but they deny the power of thereof which is the Holy Spirit.

So all that we've talked about so far is really to get you to a point where we're going to talk about today, which is the reason God forbids these things, the reason the remnant church, Adventism, even though we are ridiculed because of our stance on sexual issues, on abstinence from alcohol, drugs, our health message around what we eat, and all these different things.

We're ridiculed about the fact that we don't drink caffeine, or at least we're not supposed to.

But as the science comes out, it supports the idea that if you want the kind of mind that will be able to discern deception in the last days, you cannot be involved in these practices.

They will cloud your judgment ever so slightly and if you want an example of how important it is to not be deceived in these last days.

Think about what they can do with artificial intelligence now.

If you are not rooted and grounded, you trust what you see.

The time is coming when they will be able to make you see things.

So we've always said, well, the demons are gonna come and impersonate.

Somebody can program a computer to promote the deceptions and I don't think I put it in this talk but there's a really good study out of MIT that shows that in fact where If you take if you put on social media, if you put a lie on social media, it travels about 1000 times faster and about 100 times further than if you tell the truth.

That means the most popular people on social media are probably inherently lying to you.

The more popular they are on social media, the more likely they are they're actually telling you lies because that's how you get you can't get very famous telling the truth.

So all of that is to say that as we talk about this 1, now today, the Lord led me that I should go back over another form of habit addiction, 1 of the ways the devil gets in, and that is entertainment.

So we're gonna talk a little bit more about entertainment today.

We did a little bit the other days, and we're gonna go a little deeper into it today as we talk about the clarity of mind.

So with all of that said, let's get into this.

Our scripture reading comes from 1st Corinthians chapter 6 verse 18 which says, flee fornication.

Every sin that a man does is without the body, but he that commits fornication sins against his own body.

What, Paul says, don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own?

For you are bought with a price therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are whose God's we belong to God changes the way you do everything because what society tells you is do what you want to do do what feels good to you that's not what the Bible teaches the Bible says Jesus himself actually says it deny yourself take up your cross and follow me.

That is the instruction given to each of us as Christians.

Father God we thank you for this opportunity to study your word and I just ask now that you lead us by the power of your Holy Spirit.

These are once again very difficult spiritual issues to talk about and the devil is busy.

But Lord, right now in the name of Jesus, we rebuke Satan.

And Lord, we ask that you bind him and cast him far from this place.

Soften hearts and allow the Holy Spirit for him to move on the hearts and minds of your people now.

Our talk, Clear Minds in the Last Days, Guarding Against End-Time Deception.

We're going to use the Bible story found in Daniel chapter 5.

Daniel chapter 5 says, Belshazzar the king made a great feast to 1000 of his lords and drank wine before the thousand.

Here the Bible gives the example again of the dangers of intoxication.

I mean I get around to it at the end of the story, but he knew the truth.

In fact, he is 1 of the few pagan people in the Bible who actually has a chapter that you can credit to him, Daniel chapter 4.

So he knew the truth, but here he is getting drunk.

The Bible says in verse 2, Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels, which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple, which is in Jerusalem, that the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines might drink therein.

When you get drunk, you naturally and almost automatically bring out the vessels that belong to the temple of God.

Every time you engage in these behaviors that destroy the body temple, you are violating, defying the vessels of God.

You belong to God and so as you do these things, all these things begin to happen and he has all his wives as concubines and he's just carrying on terrible verse 3.

Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of.

Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God, which was at Jerusalem.

Out of the out of the temple of the house of God, which is at Jerusalem and the king and his princess his wives and his concubines drank in them they drank wine and what did they do they drank wine and what did they do after that they praised the gods of gold and of silver of brass of iron of wood and of stone drunkenness led to idolatry drunkenness all care was gone It is even more interesting because again, we may not get to the back end of the story that in fact, right as they're partying that whole city and nation in a sense is surrounded by their enemy.

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Series

Addiction in the Last Days: Breaking the Invisible Chains on the Mind

01 A Generation Addicted: Drugs, Demons, and a Rising Death Toll

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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04 God Likes What I Like

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4. The Video Game Antidote

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GYC 2013 Seminar: Media On the Brain

04-Addicted and Immersed

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Media on the Brain - Mini-seminar

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Our Urgent Call: LIVE the Three Angels' Messages

The Media Mind - Part 2

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WYC 2009 Plenary Sessions

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Media and the Brain

Virtual Reality

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Sound Doctrine