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

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

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.

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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

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Other Teachings in Series

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

55m

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

59m

Sound Doctrine