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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Restoration 2026: If God is Love...

Aron Crews

01 If God is Love... Why Suffering?

02 If God is Love... Why Satan?

03 If God is Love... Why the Bible?

04 If God is Love... Why the Sabbath?

05 If God is Love... Why the Rules

06 If God is Love... Why the Church?

07 If God is Love... Why Death?

09 If God is Love... Why Delay?

10 If God is Love... Why Judgment?

11 If God is Love... Why the Cross?

K'dee Elsen Crews

Freedom Through Captivity

12 If God is Love... Why Me?

08 If God is Love... Why Hell?

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this time that we have together.

And Lord, may we ultimately be drawn near to you.

I pray that you would continue to hide Katie behind your cross.

Thank you for hearing this prayer in your name we pray, Amen.

If you were here last night you got a little appetizer of what we would be talking about.

Freedom Through Captivity, how changing our thoughts restores our lives.

This whole week we've been talking about restoration and a big part of restoration is restoring our minds.

If you were here last night, don't spoil it for other people.

I started with this question, how many thoughts do we have a day?

So again, if you were here last night, now if you don't remember the answer, you could respond, but anyone who wasn't here, any guesses of how many thoughts we have a day?

How many of those thoughts, what percentage do you think are negative?

So we have about 6, 000 to 50, 000 thoughts per day and some people more than others, 80% are negative And we do a lot of self-deception in that.

What I didn't mention last night is that 95% are actually repetitive.

We might have the same thought, but different versions of the same thought.

Which later on when we talk about changing our thoughts, it's good news that we don't have to change every single, right, 50, 000 thoughts.

And then what's interesting though is that most of our thoughts are unexamined.

We have them and we never take a look at them and question them, examine them, and even change them.

Many times, especially in the mental health field, we just label things, right?

Mental health disorders, you have anxiety, depression and so forth, or we just simply think, oh, they're just my thoughts.

But we have to realize, and hopefully you've realized this whole week, that even our thoughts about God and doctrine and so forth are influenced by the enemy.

There's this great controversy, a cosmic conflict that's happening behind the scenes.

Not just big picture, but if you focus in on our very own minds, that we don't wrestle against flesh and blood.

Our problems are not just mental health problems.

Many times we say it in this way, that there is a war over our minds and we have to be prepared in fighting this war.

John 8 tells us that in this war, the father of all lies, so if you have the thought, I'm stupid, that's a lie, who's that from?

And I think just recognizing that starts to make us more just on hyper-vigilance, right?

Like we're more on guard to realize I can't just let the thought, I'm stupid, pass by.

I can't let the enemy have a foothold in my life.

Pastor Aaron had mentioned this, you know, we'll come back to Genesis 3 a lot, but in the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve ate the fruit, the first question God asked them were, where are you?

They respond, we're hiding because we're naked and ashamed.

We can ask the same question when confronted by intrusive thoughts or worldly doctrine.

If what we're hearing doesn't align with the character and word of God, it's probably a lie from the enemy.

This is a practical takeaway from that story.

The next time you have a negative thought, ask yourself, who told me that?

Now we might take it back to say, oh that's my father's voice or my mother's and in the sense of childhood, but ultimately It's the enemy.

So when we understand more of the enemy's character, all of his different names and descriptions, we realize, wow, he's a liar, he's an accuser.

When I'm being accused of being a failure and such, that comes from him.

Oh, he's a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

No wonder I'm plagued by these negative thoughts.

We have to understand that this war is happening over our minds.

Romans 12, we often quote, right, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, but it tells you that to be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

So when answering why does the devil attack us through our minds, number 1, he knows that we won't be transformed, We won't be restored, we won't know and do God's will.

Proverbs 4.23 says, watch over your heart with what?

All diligence for from it flows the springs of life.

Now you've probably quoted this before, but do we really know what it means?

It sometimes uses older language, and we're like, yeah, that's important, but what does this really mean?

It says, carefully guard your thoughts or be careful how you think.

For it determines the course of your life.

I love reading God's Word with a mental health lens because it's so practical.

This is what mental health and psychology teaches.

But here we have in Proverbs 4.23, 1 of the reasons why Satan attacks our minds, because he knows that our life is determined by our thoughts.

Not just by our actions, but by our thoughts.

Everything in your life is determined by your thoughts, including your character and salvation.

Ellen White puts it this way, if the thoughts are wrong, the feelings will be wrong.

The thoughts and feelings combined make up the moral character.

And so often as Christians, we want to build our characters, and so we study scripture, and that's important, and do a lot of spiritual practices, but we let our minds go wild.

This one's plagiarized, same idea, but plagiarized from the Bible.

Watch your habits, they become character.

Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.

Do you notice the power and importance of our thoughts?

To put this in a very simple way, another proverb, as a man thinks, so is he.

So Satan knows that we won't be transformed when he attacks our mind, that we won't know and do God's will for our lives and then Everything in our lives are determined by our thoughts Including our character and another way to say salvation is our relationship with God for eternity So Satan's prescription in this distorted thinking is at the root of mental health struggles but also a lot of physical illness as well, relationship conflict.

I don't think I had as many distorted thoughts until I got married.

Satan is trying to attack the marriage through your distortions, how you view your spouse.

I also never really sensed the Holy Spirit as much, helping you combat those negative thoughts.

It's so fun being married to a pastor because, you know, someone will come and share their their problem and, you know, my husband will address it from a spiritual lens and I just keep on thinking like, oh they view God that way?

I wonder how their father was, their earthly father.

Because so many of our distortions, even how we interpret scripture, is actually related to our thoughts and these distortions.

From a mental health perspective, specifically cognitive behavioral therapy, we're going to be using this term cognitive distortions, which are thinking patterns that are distorted.

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Series

Restoration 2026: If God is Love...

Freedom Through Captivity

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

The Great Mind Controversy

03 Freedom Through Captivity

57m

Truth Prescriptions Mental Health Series

Biblical Case Studies: Cognitive Distortions

1h 4m

Mind Control

53m

Burning or Burnt Out?

04 Feel the Burn

59m

From Shame to Glory

2. Cognitive Conflict of the Ages

54m

Plenary

The Two Guys Who Went in Twice

56m

Joseph

Default-Worse Case Scenario

38m

OYC 2011 Seminars

The Holy Spirit and Emotional Health

1h

Sound Doctrine