Sabbath School TodayWith the 1888 Message Dynamic
Jesus Wept: The Bible and Human EmotionsLesson 7: "Hope Against Depression"
No matter where we turn in the Bible, we meet someone who suffers from what we call "depression": Job sitting on his dung heap scraping his sores with a potsherd. Jeremiah weeping while he writes his Lamentations, or surely Elijah in his cave at Horeb, praying the Lord to let him die. And we can't forget David, whose Psalms are a prime example: "Out of the depths I have cried to You, O LORD (130:1); that's the powerful name, that just saying it humbles one's heart. Then in verse 2 David begs, "Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications."
But the Prince of sufferers from depression is the Lord Jesus Christ; see Him in Gethsemane. His disciples, even Peter, James, and John, couldn't give Him an hour of their precious human time without going to sleep on Him (Matt. 26:36-40). He "began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed" (the King James Version says "very heavy"). How "heavy"? "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death." Have you ever been near there?
We know that Jesus never sinned, therefore we must conclude that to be "depressed" is not of itself sin. Depression is a temptation, not a sin. It's human, and Jesus, the Son of God, became human, the Son of man. He took into His soul all the depression that all humans have suffered, cumulative, corporately, and bore it, "even unto death," the final God-forsaken kind of hopeless death when He cried out in those "depths," "My God, why have You forsaken Me?" If you feel depressed, Jesus does not cast you off; He remembers how He felt on His cross.
If you are tempted by despair, if everything has gone wrong, disappointments and misfortunes seem to shout in your ears that God has forgotten you, and to top it all off, you are keenly aware of your own sinfulness, please remember Jesus. It would not be fair for you at last to "sit down with [Him] in [His] throne" (as He promises in Revelation 3:20) unless you have at least tasted a little of what He went through. Some "fellowship with Him in His sufferings" (see Phil. 3:10) is a great blessing to you in the end. If we remember Jesus, we can see how depression is not sin, even if some well-meaning people rub that in to make your sufferings worse (Job had his three "friends").
Remember and believe God's New Covenant promises to Abraham (Gen. 12:2, 3) and see yourself as a "child of Abraham" (Gal. 3:29). Learn how to believe those promises. Fast for a while, let your mind be cleared so you can hear the "still small voice" Elijah had to listen for (1 Kings 19:12). And best of all, have a good long quiet visit alone with that Prince of all sufferers. Choose, even if you don't feel like it, to believe His promises.
What can we do to help people who are depressed? It's important to give them "good news" from the Great Physician. God calls upon those who serve Him to minister to others in need. He told Abraham that his descendants would be a blessing to the world: "Thou shalt be a blessing, … and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed (Gen. 12:2, 3). Jesus saw that His mission was to help depressed people: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel [good news, glad tidings] to the poor [those who can't afford medical treatment]; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed" (Luke 4:18).
When we realize our debt to the "Savior of the world" we will want to be ready to "know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary" (Isa. 50:4), because the Lord has sent us to do the work that He would do if He were here in person.
The week's lesson topic crosses over many of the concepts or "points" of the 1888 message. Christ has "first-hand" knowledge of depression, He came all the way to where we are, taking upon Himself "the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh" (Rom. 8:3). Thus He is a Savior "nigh at hand, not afar off." But the most comforting focal point is that Christ is a Good Shepherd who is seeking His lost sheep even though we have not sought Him. A misunderstanding of God's character causes us to think He is trying to hide from us. But at the point where every person stands, there is a Good Shepherd who has found him, comforts him, and has a message of encouragement and hope for him.
The gospel is the Good News of what Jesus has accomplished in His incarnation. Did He truly conquer this sin in the "likeness of sinful flesh"? Or did He sidestep the real issue by taking upon Himself a different nature than what we are saddled with? When He inspired the Bible, did He employ cunning rhetorical evasion to make us think that "in all points He was tempted like as we are, yet without sin," while in reality He excused Himself from facing and conquering the REAL temptation that plagues us all? Well, I must tell what I believe: the true gospel IS the power of God unto salvation from depression to everyone who believes (see Rom. 1:16). So, everything depends on understanding what it means to believe!
Depression is overcome--through believing genuine Good News.
--Robert J. Wieland[Excerpts from his writings]
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