Heart Burn: The Answer to Spiritual Depression
Please turn with me to Luke chapter 24, verses13-35:
Now that same day (Easter Sunday) two of them (i.e., Jesus’ disciples) were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.
He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”
They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?”
“What things?” he asked.
“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.”
He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.”
Today is a day of unprecedented psychological and emotional illness. We hear much about depression, schizophrenia, neurosis, psychosis, paranoia, passive-aggressive tendencies, manic-depressive illness, megalomania, ADD and a host of other diagnoses. Professional counselors are being trained at an unprecedented rate to help take care of all these troubled people. According to recent statistics, the following is the ratio of psychiatrists and psychologists to the population of various Western countries:
- Italy has 1 for every 333,000 people
- Germany has 1 for every 43,000 people
- France has 1 for every 32,000 people
- Britain has 1 for every 22,000 people
- U.S.A. has 1 for every 8,500 people (40 times the number per capita as in Italy).
Nor has this phenomenal increase in demand for psychotherapy escaped the ranks of evangelical Christians. Virtually every Seminary has increased the number of courses designed to help pastors do effective counseling. Christian psychotherapists often have to turn down patients because their case loads are full. Pastors are overwhelmed by the number of people seeking help. Furthermore, if you go to your Christian bookstore you will notice that Christians are buying “How to” books like they’re going out of style:
How to Win Over Depression
How to Be Happier in the Job You Can’t Stand
The Transformation of the Inner Me
The Search for Significance
Growing Up Emotionally
Understanding Yourself
The Christian’s Use of Emotional Power
The Art of Learning to Love Yourself
At the same time, many are neglecting the greatest source book of all, the Bible. One of my seminary professors said, “Christians are voraciously devouring La Haye, Gothard, Narramore and Tournier (that was 30 years ago — today we might change the names to Anderson, Smalley, Dobson, Trent, Minirth and Meier, but the point is the same), literature which is to the Bible like Jack Benny is to Yasha Heifitz.”
Now my purpose this morning is certainly not to level a blanket criticism at professional counselors. I have a very healthy respect for psychiatrists and psychologists when it comes to their expertise in dealing with emotional problems that are induced by complex environmental factors, or chemical imbalance, or glandular disorder, or some such cause. I frequently refer people to professional Christian therapists. I have even used their services myself a few times. However, I believe that many of the problems we see in Christian circles are due to spiritual depression of one sort or another, and spiritual depression calls for a spiritual solution.
Let me define spiritual depression as a state of emotional or psychological disturbance characterized by pessimism, defeat, apathy, and a negative self-concept, brought on by spiritual factors such as false doctrine, sin, unbelief, failure to respond properly to divine discipline, or just plain spiritual laziness. I repeat that “Spiritual depression is a state of emotional or psychological disturbance characterized by pessimism, defeat, apathy, and a negative self-concept, brought on by spiritual factors such as false doctrine, sin, unbelief, failure to respond properly to divine discipline, or just plain spiritual laziness.”
I believe spiritual depression is of epidemic proportions and increasing. So I would like for us to ask ourselves, “What are its causes and what is its solution?” At least part of the answer to these questions is found in Luke 24, where we find Christ on Easter Sunday afternoon on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus with two of his disciples.
It should not be any great shock to us that these two disciples are spiritually depressed. While we do not know anything about their personal lives, we do know enough about their circumstances to sympathize with their predicament. Several years before they had cast their lot with a strange itinerant preacher from Galilee. Times were rough from the start. Whenever success would begin to raise its hopeful head, opposition would arise to level it again. Never having a permanent place to stay or any extra money, they wandered with Jesus from Galilee to Judea to Samaria to Perea, watching his miracles, listening to his discourses, and trying to absorb his spiritual wisdom.
The most recent ray of hope had appeared just the Sunday before, as Jesus rode into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey, hailed as king by thousands of onlookers. They could see for the first time the definite possibility of Jesus inaugurating a new kingdom, leading a rebellion against wicked Rome and establishing righteous rule for the first time in human memory.
But then everything began to go wrong. First, Jesus began to hint more broadly that their expectation of the kingdom might not be exactly correct. At the last supper he even went so far as to say that one of his inner circle of disciples would betray him and deliver him to the authorities. And then while they were praying with him in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was seized by the religious leaders, with the help of the Romans. A mockery of a trial resulted in an absolute miscarriage of justice and Jesus was handed over to the mobs to be crucified.
Their hopes were shattered. All their fond memories and all their grand dreams vanished as Roman guards led him off to the place of the skull. Still a faint glitter of hope remained in some of their hearts. Perhaps he would wait until the last minute and then perform one of his mighty miracles to escape from their midst. But then even that hope was gone as they saw him die and his body was given to Joseph of Arimathea for burial in a nearby tomb.
Now it is the Sunday after the crucifixion, and these two disciples are terribly confused. They have heard a rumor that Jesus had risen from the dead earlier that morning, but to their knowledge no one had seen him. They are on their way home to Emmaus, just seven miles or so from Jerusalem, and they are discussing the events that had just recently occurred. I would love to have a tape recording of their conversation. Perhaps it would have gone something like this:
“Jacob, what do you make of it all anyway?”
“I don’t know, Cleopas. The biggest problem to me is why he allowed our people and the Romans to mistreat him so? How can that possibly be honoring to God? After all, the right of self-defense is a basic human right, but he just let them abuse him without any attempt to defend himself.”
“The thing that I find especially hard to understand,” adds Cleopas, “is that we know he had supernatural power. He could have obliterated those soldiers at will.”
“You don’t think those miracles he performed were fake, do you?” asked Jacob.
“How could they have been? You saw several of them with your own eyes. No, somehow he must have believed it necessary to die on the cross. In fact, I even remember him making comments to that effect. But why? What about all his talk about the Kingdom?”
“It beats me,” said Jacob. “By the way, do you think there is any chance at all that those women really did see an angel? And what about their claim that he was resurrected this morning?”
“I don’t know what to think. Wouldn’t he have shown himself to us by now? The women probably wanted to believe it so bad that they talked themselves into it.”
Cleopas continued, “All I know is that we’d better stay away from Jerusalem for a good long time. The Romans will probably try to find all of his disciples now and kill us.”
While they are conversing, Jesus catches up with them, but they fail to recognize him. For reasons we may not fully understand, God kept these two disciples from recognizing that their fellow-traveler was Jesus. It may be that he wanted them to grasp how helpless and hopeless they were without him.
How often we get caught up in the hopelessness of a situation, blinded to the spiritual realities behind the events. And, without doubt, there is much to be discouraged about even today. When our President’s popularity soars in direct proportion to the revelations of his personal immorality, when the “Post Disgrace” continues its relentless assault on fundamental Christianity, as it did again this week, when we see children killing children and adults murdering babies, when natural disasters strike far and wide—frankly it takes a strong dose of confidence in the presence and power of Christ to keep us from despair. And Jesus is going to offer such a prescription to them shortly.
But the first observation I want to make concerning these two disciples is that
Jesus’ disciples suffer from certain spiritual liabilities.
When Jesus asks them, “What’s up?,” their first spiritual liability surfaces:
Lost joy. Look at verse 17b: “They stood still, their faces downcast.” Their dejection at what had happened to Jesus could not be hidden. They had lost their joy. You know something? Negative thinking accompanied by negative facial expressions can actually lead a person into depression. There is such a thing as a downward spiral where negative thoughts lead to depression and depression in turn leads to more negative thoughts.
Dr. Frank Minirth and Dr. Paul Meier wrote a book several years ago entitled, Happiness Is a Choice. While I don’t think that’s always true, certainly not for those who are undergoing chemical imbalance, it is true for many of us. We can choose to pout and withdraw and complain, or we can choose to believe God when he tells us that we are on the winning side, that our trials are momentary, and that they all have a divine purpose.
Lost hope. Notice verses 20 and 21: “The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place.” Notice the past tense, “we had hoped.” In other words, we had it and we’ve lost it. The cross had not destroyed the love of these two disciples for Jesus, but it had certainly shattered their hopes and dreams.
Unbelief. Jesus says to them in verse 25: “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” Slow to believe all. They had seen and believed only some of the Messianic prophecies—the ones which spoke of Messiah’s kingdom and victory. And when that kingdom failed to come about as they expected, or in the time frame they expected, they became victims of unbelief. The Scriptures had all along taught that Messiah would have to suffer before he reigned. This should have been obvious from such passages as Genesis 3:15, Psalm 22, and Isaiah. 53.
In summary, the spiritual depression of the two Emmaus disciples was both experiential and doctrinal: loss of joy, loss of hope, and unbelief. They are in trouble because of their spiritual liabilities, but lest we think they are in a hole of depression too deep to escape, we hasten to turn your attention to a second observation.
Jesus’ disciples enjoy certain spiritual assets.
While their faith had somewhat failed them and there was more of pessimism and confusion in their minds than trust and understanding, let it not be said that they were at the point of giving up and throwing away their faith in Jesus. As a matter of fact, I see several spiritual assets that serve to counterbalance their liabilities. Perhaps the most significant of these is that
Their topic of conversation is Jesus. Though they don’t understand what has happened, they still have their thoughts focused on him. If we’re spiritually depressed, if we’re disappointed in Jesus, we’re not going to solve the problem by drowning it in a bottle, or going on a spending binge, or quitting church in favor of golf. If we really want to get well, then we’d best get our minds on spiritual things in general and Jesus in particular. God doesn’t mind hearing our honest doubts and having us express our confusions to him, nearly so much as he minds being ignored. If we are asking questions, then at least God can answer them. But if we’re running away from him in anger, what can he then do for us?
Their focus is on the historical facts. Look at verse 19. When Jesus asks them what events in Jerusalem they are talking about, they respond, “About Jesus of Nazareth. He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him.” The facts they recognized started with who they believed Jesus was.
He was a prophet mighty in deeds and he did many signs and miracles. Remember how Jesus reassured John the Baptist by telling two of John’s disciples: “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” (Matthew 11:4-5). Not only was he mighty in deeds; he was also mighty in word. When he spoke, his words rang with the power and authority of God. Frequently we read that the multitudes were amazed at his teaching; for he was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their mealy-mouthed scribes.
We have to start with what we know. We have to continually go back to the basic truths of Christianity, for there is where we will find a secure foundation. Every believer needs to have a solid foundation in biblical truth. Last Fall we offered a Lay Bible Institute course on Basic Bible Doctrine. I was so encouraged that some 70 people signed up and over 60 completed the course. We plan to offer that every year. You see, I am convinced that biblical truth is a preventive to much of the spiritual depression Christians experience. The more solid our foundation, the quicker we will go back to the basics when trials come, and the less likely we will be blown out of the saddle.
They demonstrate a spirit of hospitality. Verse 29 says that they urged him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” Notice how different this is from our normal inclinations. When we suffer from depression, the last thing we usually want is to be around other people or to invite people into our home. We tend to withdraw from our Christian friends, though that is just when we need them most.
When I notice that someone has not been attending services regularly and have a chance to talk with that person, I frequently find that they are suffering from some sort of spiritual depression—either indifference, discouragement, or defeat. But often it is difficult to decide whether they are not coming because of spiritual depression or they are depressed because they are not coming. Whichever it is, I am convinced of one thing—there is a direct relationship between spiritual depression and contact with other believers. God didn’t give us Hebrews 10:25 because he was trying to increase attendance at local churches (that’s the verse, by the way, that exhorts us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together). He gave us that command because he knows that we need each other.
Incidentally, did you ever see a greater example of the truth of Hebrews 13:2 than is found in the hospitality of these two Emmaus disciples? “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some have entertained angels unawares.” These two unwittingly entertained the captain of the angelic hosts.
So far we have found the Emmaus disciples spiritually depressed. We have looked at the spiritual liabilities which contributed to the depression but also at some spiritual assets that can help them out of it. We turn now to Jesus and see that …
Jesus is able to turn spiritual depression into joyful confidence.
It is indeed amazing to watch Jesus operate as he does in this incident. Do you see the humor? Imagine the smile on his face when they ask him, “Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?”
No, he is certainly more than a visitor. Initially he just listens, but he is not beyond correcting them. “How foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” Most significantly, he begins to instruct them in the Old Testament scriptures. If I wish I had been able to hear the conversation between the two disciples, how much more this little sermon by Jesus! Can you imagine the joy of hearing the Messiah himself preach on the Messianic Psalms and the Old Testament prophecies? I suspect he started with …
Genesis, where he is shown to be the seed of the woman who crushes the head of the Evil One.
Exodus – the true Passover lamb
Leviticus – the atoning sacrifice
Numbers – the Manna from heaven and the serpent lifted up in the wilderness
Deuteronomy – the Prophet like Moses
Ruth – the Kinsman-Redeemer
Psalms – the good shepherd
Isaiah – Wonderful counselor, mighty God, eternal Father, Prince of Peace
Jeremiah – the branch of righteousness
Ezekiel – the plant of renown
Daniel – the stone cut without hands
Hosea – the lion of the house of Judah, the husband with an unfaithful wife
Joel – the stronghold of the sons of Israel
Amos – the roaring lion
Obadiah – the deliverer on Mt. Zion
Jonah – the one who was delivered after three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Micah – the ruler from Bethlehem Ephrathah
Nahum – the one standing on the mountain publishing peace
Habakkuk – the rock who goes forth for salvation
Zephaniah – the victorious warrior
Haggai – the signet ring
Zechariah – the rider on the red horse, the branch, the King mounted on a donkey, the cornerstone
Malachi – the refiner, the sun of righteousness, and the fuller that whitens like no other whitener can
What a sermon that must have been, as Jesus pointed out truth about himself on every page of the Old Testament! Friends, we need to read our Bibles with our spiritual eyes open to all that it says about Jesus. He’s there, because this is not just a history book; it is not just great literature. It is the biography of Jesus.
The final and most important thing Jesus does to turn their spiritual depression into joyful confidence is that he reveals his presence to them. As he breaks the bread, they recognize him. Perhaps he did so in a way peculiar to him. Perhaps their attention was drawn to the nail prints in his hands. No doubt he said grace, and maybe it was the way only he could pray. But then he immediately disappears.
We come finally to the fact that …
The ultimate solution to spiritual depression is “heart burn.”
In case you hadn’t figured it out, the kind of heart burn we’re advocating today is the kind talked about in verse 32. It says that after Jesus vanished from their sight, they said to one another, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” The answer to spiritual depression is a personal encounter with the risen Christ through the Scriptures. As these disciples realized they had been with Jesus, their road of despair turned into a highway of hope.
Would Jesus say to you and me today, “How foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” He might have to if we don’t know the Scriptures, for it’s impossible to believe in something of which we are ignorant. Now I’ll grant that listening to your Sunday School teacher or pastor or favorite radio preacher is a far cry from the privilege these two had in listening to Jesus himself, but there is much that we can learn today, even on our own, if we have a hunger to know God and his Word.
That will do more to cure your spiritual depression than anything else. These two disciples are so cured that they get up immediately and walk seven miles back to Jerusalem in order to share the good news with the other disciples. Danger or not, they cannot be satisfied to just sit on the experience.
Conclusion: I am not suggesting this morning that Christians start living in a dream world, denying their difficulties and frustrations, and gullibly accepting religious dogma as the answer to all their problems. Rather I’m suggesting that when the risen Christ is seen in all his glory, he enables a person to see new hope in his circumstances and to gain a sense of well-being that is absolutely unavailable through any other means.
Every one of us faces trials and circumstances that have the potential of bringing on spiritual depression. At such times we are tempted to think that all hope is lost, that God doesn’t really care, and that unbelief, or at least pessimism, is our only choice. We must resist such a conclusion.
During the Battle of Waterloo, England waited eagerly for news of the outcome. Its citizenry knew full well that if Wellington, the English general, could not defeat Napoleon, England would be lost. Patience was exhausted, nerves were frayed. Finally, semaphore signals appeared from a ship in the English Channel. From the top of the Winchester Cathedral trained eyes read the news:
WELLINGTON DEFEATED …
Fog set in and no further transmission was possible. “Wellington defeated” was relayed throughout England. Despair reigned as the people prepared for the worst. What would Napoleon do to their beloved England?
But later the fog lifted and the full message was communicated –WELLINGTON DEFEATED … THE ENEMY!
When Jesus died on the cross, the hopes and dreams of his disciples came to what they believed was an insoluble end. The only message that seemed to come through was the message, JESUS DEFEATED …. But on the third day the stone which secured the tomb was rolled away and the full message was communicated: JESUS DEFEATED … THE ENEMY! He defeated Satan and he defeated death. And today he lives. He wants to be your Savior and Lord. Through believing in him you may have life, not just eternal life, but abundant life right now. A long-term, overall sense of well-being is available through Jesus Christ, and only through him.
Tags:
Depression
Joy
Hope
Unbelief
Hospitality