I stood in my classroom tonight and tried to tell a young Christian that, though he was on a spiritual high at this moment, to dwell not on the warm feelings of relief and happiness, but to begin studying the Word of God. I tried to explain that the average Christian remains on the natural high of experiencing the New Birth for only about a year before that feeling wanes. I also tried to explain that, while he is on this emotional high, to concentrate on studying the Word of God, concentrate on applying it to his life. Learn and grow, this is the Christian way of life. Yet the young man persisted in asking me, "Why doesn't the emotional high stay? Why will it go away?". I could tell by his eyes that he really didn't believe what this old man was saying. My only answer was, "Because it's human nature".

It is human nature to be ecstatic (emotionally so) when you finally purchase your new car. Remember that new car? You were so careful to keep any dirt out of it. You bought only the finest carnuba waxes, rubbed polish on the interior fabric, treated it to an oil change every time the dipstick showed the slightest bit of oil. But after the first year it became a part of the family, a little rumpled, and you no longer cared if anyone got in it with muddy boots.

To the Christian, the relationship that he builds between himself and His Father is a lot like that car. When we're first saved we're on that emotional high, but as we settle into the relationship we become quieter, more at home with the Lord. That is, that's the case with believers who stay in the Word, studying it's precepts daily while applying them to their lives. Other Christians, on losing that emotional high, seek Church bodies that will satisfy their sensual cravings. They follow after the Charismatic, Laughter movements like it was the Holy Grail of union to God. Rather than study the Word they seek new ecstasies, new experiences. One of the fastest growing ring of sites on the Internet today is the "Prophecy" sites. No, not Bible prophecy, but sites created by Believers who feel that God has given them another prophetic word outside of God's Word. These sites are all over the place, and the writings are a mish mash of the alphabet that do nothing to promote that which we know God told us.

When the ecstasy is gone, when the experience cannot be re-created, if the Believer has failed in studying the One True Word of God, the Holy Bible, spiritual depression usually sets in. What causes spiritual depression? That's what we're going to focus on in this study.
 

Isaiah 30:9-15 "That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord:  Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits:  Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.   Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon:  Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant.  And he shall break it as the breaking of the potters' vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare: so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit.   For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not."

The pastor who speaks only the sweet things to his congregation actually adds fuel to the fire of unbelief amongst the members of the Body. When the physical head of the Body whispers only sweet nothings to the congregation, the congregation fails to grow in grace. For this cause many Church members in our present day believe in God as either a Force without personality, or swing in the other direction and see God as a celestial "Big Brother". When this "Force" or "Big Brother" fails to help solve our problems at a moment's notice, many lose the faith and feel that there is no God. Others fall under spiritual depression.
 

The ultimate cause of emotional depression among Christians is a lack of faith in their Father, and a lack of application of His Word. If we fail to apply the teachings of the Word of God emotional depression becomes easier to fall prey to, and that much more fatal to our spiritual lives when it hits. Paul told the Galatians:

Galatians 4:8-20 "Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.  I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain. Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as ye are: ye have not injured me at all. Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth? They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them. But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you. My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you."

The Christian way of Life with it's resultant peace and inner happiness does not come by the operation of Law or Rule, but by faith and trust in that which God has given us through His Word. We must trust our very being to the Father and to the filling of His Spirit, not to man-made rules and regulations.  The devilish doctrine teaches that Believers are under a set of rules and laws, that we did not come out from under the Law but are still chained by it's precepts. The devilish doctrine teaches that, that which was begun in Grace, is now only retained by following a set of Laws. The devilish doctrine teaches that Grace alone does not save, but that the formula for salvation is Grace + Arbitrary Works. The Galatians fell into the false doctrine traps of the legalists and, in so doing, opened a doorway to spiritual depression.

"But this is not to say that every word or passage in the Bible comes directly from God and is therefore not to be questioned... Many of their [the Biblical writers] erroneous ideas got mixed in with the truth that came to them from God. In the day when any science was unheard of it was inevitable that unscientific ideas would appear in the writings. You cannot expect to find in the Old Testament all the ethical high insights of Jesus. When descriptions of events were written down long after events occurred, inaccuracies crept in.."

The Episcopalian Bishop Pike wrote:

"I do not think that the doctrine of the Trinity is any longer necessary in the Christian faith. I am more broad Church [liberal] than I was ten years ago ... I believed in the Virgin birth.."

Theologian Leslie Weatherhead writes:

"You know, every minister has cranks in his Church who come up and say to you, 'I believe in a literal bodily resurrection', and furthermore, 'He is [Christ] coming to the earth a second time' [Weatherhead believes in neither the resurrection of the believer nor of Christ. He believes that the body of Christ evaporated, and was not resurrected at all]

Before you be quick to condemn the Methodists and the Episcopalians (and I am sure that there are many fine Christians in these denominations who do not support such devilish nonsense), this sort of thing is going on in mainline denominational Churches all across our nation. Many Pastors have watered the truth of the Scripture down so far that their congregations have little to no applied Biblical truths that they can use to live their Christian lives. Not too long ago I was preaching in a Southern Baptist Church a message entitled "Where are the Nine?" (Luke 17.12-18). During the course of the message I focused on the need of the believer to take the time to praise the Author of his healing, to not be like the Nine Lepers who went their way without thanking Jesus. At the end of the sermon I had an old lady (who was a Charter Member of that Church) come forward and, very formally inform me that the Nine were in the right whereas the One who came back to thank Jesus was in the wrong. Her basis for this startling conclusion was that, by the Mosaic Law, you were to immediately go to the priests upon the cessation of leprosy in order to be cleansed. She thought that Jesus (as well as I) was wrong to upbraid the Nine for failing to go to Him before disappearing off to the Temple. What about you? Do you think Jesus was wrong? Do you think Jesus was the Author and Finisher of the Law, or only a man subject to failure as we are? If so, your spiritual perspective has become twisted, and you are subject to spiritual depression. How did this woman ever come to such a spiritual impasse? Perhaps because her Pastor failed to preach the pure Word of God rather than water it down to suit the congregation.

The most dangerous of all false teachings are those which take 50% of the Word and 50% of humanism, shake it up, and offer the resultant mess as 100% Gospel. These are the false doctrines that the errant pastor preaches from the pulpit in an effort to please his congregation and, in so doing, keep his job. The doctrine that teaches "Grace alone saves" and then, (muttered under the breath) "as long as you do good works, and are baptized the right way, and attend the Lord's table, and give ten percent of your earthly goods, and.....". The statement made that "Brother So and So is such a good man, he must be saved" sounds logical, but is patently unbiblical. I know of two men, both very good men, who only recently came to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. One man was so good that he was made a deacon in his Church, and had hopes of becoming Chairman of deacons. Statements that goodness makes a Christian implies that the Cross of Christ was unnecessary for all men, that all men are not dead in their sins. The Bible implicitly states:

Galatians 2:21 "I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain."

Christ did not die in vain, and righteousness can not come by following the Law nor by being a highly moral person. The Cross of Christ was not an arbitrary thing that God had the option to do or not. It was a very necessary thing for our salvation, a thing that cost the Father more than He had ever given. Those who follow the devilish doctrine of legalism do not have a steady relationship with their Heavenly Father. When they feel that they're worthy enough they're on an emotional high of self-righteousness. When they feel that they were less than worthy they're on an emotional low from this alleged backslidden state. Their spiritual relationship is always dependent on their emotional state at that time.
 

2 Timothy 3:16-17 "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works."

In the early Church Bibles were only available as handwritten copies of the original text, very rare for many Christians to come by. In the Middle Ages Bibles were written in Latin and offered only to priests. The common man had to take what the pastor said as Gospel. With the advent of the movable type printing press Bibles became available to all Christians for a small price, and are available in nearly every language that man speaks. Yet with all it's availability many Christians insist on blindly following what their pastors tell them without verifying the information for themselves. Why? Well, in many Churches we've returned to the mistaken idea that the Pastor, as God's man in the pulpit, can do no wrong. We have the idea, in many instances, that our pastors are as infallible as the Pope claims. My friends, your Pastor may be a good man, but he is not infallible.

Even if he were infallible (which is a claim only Jesus can make), we as believers are called on by God to spend personal and private time studying our own Bibles. 2 Timothy 3.17 makes it clear that the Christian can not grow as he ought unless he studies the Word of God, applying it's precepts to his life. The local Church pastor is your guide, certainly. He is your overseer, yes. But he should not be the only means that you have for growing in Scriptural knowledge. The Bible says:

Phillipians 2:12-13 "Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

Are you really in Christ? Are you Biblically saved? Will you go to Heaven upon your death? If I were to ask you these questions, how would you answer me? If your answer is, "Because my Pastor told me so", or "Doctor So and So preached a sermon that said..." then look to your lives! If your answer is, "Because it's in the Bible, and I can show you", then, praise God, you too can avoid the Doctrine of Demons that is so easily ingested in our present world. It's time for Christians everywhere to get busy studying. If you haven't work(ed) out your own salvation with fear and trembling, then you'd better get busy. Hell is a reality that no one should experience. God Bless you all!