Tag Archives: Psalm 43

Biblical Counseling, Depression Part IV

07 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Hope, John Bunyan, Psalms

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COUNSELING PROBLEMS AND BIBLICAL CHANGE

BIBLICAL SOLUTIONS FOR DEPRESSION, PART FOUR

 

DEPRESSION AND MEMORY

Memory is a curious thing when it comes to depression: Depression has the effect of muddling up our memory. When a depressed person attempts to remember things going on in the recent past, they tend make mistakes.[1]

Yet, depression also feeds upon memory.  Emily Dickinson wrote a poem which begins, “Remorse is memory awake”. In the final stanza she writes

Remorse is cureless,—the disease

Not even God can heal;

For ’t is His institution,—

The complement of hell.

 

A 14th Century book from England is entitled Ayenbite of Inwyt – the Again-bite of In-wit [one’s inner thoughts]. One of the great pains of life is not our mere present circumstances, but our memory of how we came to this place.

For example, imagine a man in living alone in an apartment in Hollywood. If the man had recently immigrated from rural Laos, the apartment and the city might seem a wonder and joy.

Now consider another man: Six months earlier he had been married and living in Bell Aire. However, through a series of foolish and wicked choices he now finds himself divorced and living in an apartment in Hollywood.

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Biblical Counseling for Depression, Part Three

25 Monday Aug 2014

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Psalms

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COUNSELING PROBLEMS AND BIBLICAL CHANGE

BIBLICAL SOLUTIONS FOR DEPRESSION, PART THREE

Is there a cure for depression? Yes. But it is not in us. It is in God. The cure is to seek God’s face, so ours will not be downcast, which is what the psalmist does.

James Boice, “An Upward Look by a Downcast Soul”

 

  1. BE CAREFUL ABOUT THE WORD “DEPRESSION”

A mistake which can easily be made is that all “depression” is created equal. As we noted before, not every distress called “depression” has the same cause nor does it require the same response. Indeed, the Bible doesn’t use the word “depression” as a catch-all category for moods and behaviors which result in extreme bouts of unhappiness.

In the early 17th Century, Richard Sibbes wrote a book called, “The Soul’s Conflict With Itself” which details many different sorts of pain, sorrow, withdrawing — all of which might be loosely termed “depression.”

As we stated before, there are medical problems which can fall under the title, “depression.” Where there is a medical problem, then medicine is an appropriate treatment.  However, much of the medical treatment for “depression” has proven to be of little help:

In the January 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a large study found that in patients with mild, moderate or even severe depression, a placebo had the same therapeutic benefit as an active antidepressant medication.  Depending on the study, patients in these three categories make up 70 to 87 percent of all patients who present with depression. The study concluded that unless a person had very severe depression, a placebo pill was as effective as antidepressant medication. Even when treating very severe depression, the placebo effect could account for up to 80 percent of the effect of the antidepressant medication[1].

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Thirteen Diagnostic Tests for Soul Idolatry.3

05 Tuesday Feb 2013

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, David Clarkson, Hope, Puritan, Thomas Watson

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7. Fear: That we fear is our God; for fear is in the heart of worship. Thus, Scripture often terms worship to be “fear” of the Lord (Matt. 4:10; Deut. 6:13). In Isaiah 51:12-13 God equates fear of “who dies” with forgetting the Lord.  That which we fear most is our God.

 

Thomas Watson in The Great Gain of Godliness explains the rightful fear of the Lord:

 

[It] is a divine fear, which is the reverencing and adoring of God’s holiness, and the setting of ourselves always under his sacred inspection. The infinite distance between God and us causes this fear.

 

God is so breat that the Christian is afraid of displeasing him, and so good that he is afraid of losing him.

 

This is not to be “afraid of God”, because a godly fear is mixed with love, faith, prudence (caution), hope, diligence (in the things of God).

 

That which we fear we make our greatest concern. If we first fear man, then man’s judgment is the basis of justification – we bring ourselves into judgment before that which we fear.

 

This is especially a deadly matter, because when we fail to fear God we cannot help but sin against him. That thing we fear other than God, that god which is no God, will lead us surely. Thus, the fearful and cowardly are reckoned among the idolaters (Rev. 21:8).

 

8. Hope: That object of our hope is our God – it is the place to which we journey and subject our life. A drowning man thinks of nothing but the air – the place of the air is his hope and all his life he directs to getting air.

 

The Christian’s hope must be solely in the Lord Jesus Christ:

 

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:13 (ESV)

 

God, himself is our hope and joy:

 

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:13 (ESV)

 

Just as saving faith must entail trust so it must entail hope. Therefore, Jesus is called our “hope” (1 Tim. 1:1). This is the effect of Christ:

 

To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Colossians 1:27 (ESV)

 

There are many who hope for “heaven”, by which them the fulfilling of their desire for the creature. They think heaven to be a place of all their current delight – when heaven (and better still, the New Heavens and the New Earth) are a place of love and joy in our Savior.

There is a subtle danger in our hope: For one can learn to hope in her own prayers, and obedience, and service. In so doing, salvation is no longer the gift of a God who justifies the ungodly, but rather the merit of my efforts. If we will hope in God, then we must hope in him alone.

 

That upon which we fix our immovable hope, that is our God – and thus is often an idol.

 

9. Desire: Anything we desire as much as or more than a desire to enjoy God – that is our god.  David’s desire was for the Lord:

 

One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple. Psalm 27:4 (ESV)

 

When the Sons of Korah despair, they desire to appear before God:

 

1 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? Psalm 42:1–2 (ESV)

 

When you fall into a crushing hole of sorrow and despair, what do you desire – what do you think or feel could lift the weight? That which you desire in your joy – and that which you desire in your depression, that is your God:

 

1 Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people, from the deceitful and unjust man deliver me! 2 For you are the God in whom I take refuge; why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? 3 Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling! 4 Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God. 5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. Psalm 43 (ESV)

Part One can be found here:

https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/thirteen-diagnostic-tests-for-soul-idolatry-1/

Part Two can be found here:

https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/thirteen-diagnostic-tests-for-soul-idolatry-2/

The main art in the manner of spiritual living

21 Friday Dec 2012

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Meditation, Psalms, Quotations

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The main art in the manner of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, you have to preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul, “Why art thou cast down?” — what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: “Hope thou in God” — instead of muttering in this depressed unhappy way. And you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: “I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God.”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression, “General Consideration”

But David Strengthened Himself

25 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by in 1 Samuel, Biblical Counseling, Obedience, Prayer, Psalms

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On the most difficult aspects of biblical counseling comes when emotion controls the counselee. Someone in the midst of a difficult circumstance such one facing disease, loss of a home, loss of a job, divorce or marriage trouble, a child who has turned badly will often face and experience powerful emotions. The emotions alone are merely emotions, a subjective valuation of an event.

The troubles comes not with the emotions per se but more the control the emotion exercises over the person. Who overcome with emotion may think (ironically) themselves incapable of obedience. When conforming to one’s emotions without reason, one often resorts to various sins in an attempt to manage the world as seen through the emotion.

Thus, a husband in a bitter marriage may express bitterness toward his wife, even though God has commanded love. The wife of an unbelieving drunkard may complain and seek to manipulate her husband, even though The Lord has prescribed a gentle, pure heart for such a situation. A parent who has lost a child may grieve, but as those who have no hope.

The story of David and the sack of Ziklag illustrates what one may — and must do — when faced with overwhelming tribulation:

1 Now when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day, the Amalekites had made a raid against the Negeb and against Ziklag. They had overcome Ziklag and burned it with fire
2 and taken captive the women and all who were in it, both small and great. They killed no one, but carried them off and went their way.
3 And when David and his men came to the city, they found it burned with fire, and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive.
4 Then David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep.
5 David’s two wives also had been taken captive, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel.
6 And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.


1 Samuel 30:1-6. David suffers like the rest, but he does not despair overmuch. Rather, in the midst of his pain he seeks the help of God.

The counselee may ask, How can I take hold of God when in such pain? What would it be to take hold of God from here? How could I pray? The 42 & 43 Psalms give a picture of this. Psalm 43 in particular shows the back and forth as one reasons with oneself and calls out to God: I am in distress, but God ….:

1 Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people, from the deceitful and unjust man deliver me!
2 For you are the God in whom I take refuge; why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
3 Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling!
4 Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.

Discipleship in Acts 12: Prayer and Assembly

11 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by in Acts, Biblical Counseling, Discipleship, Prayer, Psalms, Romans

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Acts 12:5

So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.

Acts 12:12
When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying.

Jesus had trained the disciples to pray in times of trouble. The disciples had trained the others. Peter knew they would be assembled and in prayer.

An example of such prayer comes in Psalm 43:1. Read as a continuous meditation beginning in Psalm 42, this prayer in verse 1 marks the change in the Psalmist’s dejection:

Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people, from the deceitful and unjust man deliver me!

Consider how such prayer changes his circumstance: by humbling himself and casting all his cares upon his Savior (1 Peter 5:6-7), the problem no longer belongs to child but now belongs to a Father of infinite strength and wisdom who never does wrong.

A disciple is one who follows the Son; and thus our aim is to become confirmed to the image of the Son (Rom 8:29). Such prayer in times of trouble is a mark of Christ upon the soul. It is the delightful submission of faith which to hope.