Sunday School Lesson

1. Psalms 42:1-11 & 43:1-5
Spiritual Depression
August 27, 2017
First Baptist Church
Jackson, Mississippi
USA
What’s the number one thing?
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The Glory of God!
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1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV
31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
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2. August Memory Verse:
Ephesians 3:20-21 NASB
20 Now to Him Who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or
think, according to the power that works within us, 21 to Him be the glory in the
church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
Nearly Wed / Newly Wed
September 10 -- October 29, 2017 -- 9:00 a.m.
Summit Counseling
Reception Area (CLC)
Margaret Lackey Offering
Pam Tebow
September 28

3. Psalms 42:1-11 & 43:1-5
Spiritual Depression
Psalms 42:1-11 NASB
Thirsting for God in Trouble and Exile. A Maskil (a contemplative poem) of the
sons of Korah.
1 As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So my soul pants for You, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;
When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food day and night,
While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me.
For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the
house of God,
With the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him
For the help of His presence.
6 O my God, my soul is in despair within me;
Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan
And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls;
All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.
8 The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime;
And His song will be with me in the night,
A prayer to the God of my life.
9 I will say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me,
While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
11 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.
Psalm 42:1-11 NASB

4. Psalm 43:1-5 NASB
Prayer for Deliverance.
1 Vindicate me, O God, and plead my case against an ungodly nation;
O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man!
2 For You are the God of my strength; why have You rejected me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
3 O send out Your light and Your truth, let them lead me;
Let them bring me to Your holy hill
And to Your dwelling places.
4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
To God my exceeding joy;
And upon the lyre I shall praise You, O God, my God.
5 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why are you disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.
Psalms 43:1-5 NASB
Skip Heitzig
Born: 1955
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The Great Grimaldi!
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5. From the series:
Songs for the Heart
By Skip Heitzig
Feeling Down, Looking Up – Psalm 42-43
Songs for the Heart
In ancient Israel, the Psalms were poems set to music and they were meant to
be sung!
Because the Psalms depict the struggles of real people, we turn to them for
strength, comfort and encouragement.
The Psalms provide insight into the character of God and His greatness, and will
enhance your praise and worship of Him.
"Down in the dumps and singing the blues" is an experience common to us all
and as you know, depression is no respecter of persons.
The ancients called it - “the dark night of the soul” and it has also been referred
to as “the common cold of mental illness”.
Thoughts tumble in from the mind and rush the soul.
Circumstances mount themselves around us putting us on emotional alert and
then the doubts rush in like a river.
Sound familiar?
Then these psalms are for you, friend!
Clinical depression – imbalance of neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine,
norepinephrine.
At other times, it is not clinical (physical) depression but Spiritual Depression.

6. Four Spiritual Laws
Two Spiritual Flaws -
1) As a Christian, you should not have any problems anymore.
2) If you are depressed, you must be unspiritual or at least be an immature
Christian.
David, Elijah, Job, and Paul suffered depression.
Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones wrote Spiritual Depression – It’s Causes and Cures
I. Causes of Spiritual Depression:
A. Unfulfilled Expectations.
B. Taunts of Unbelievers.
C. Overwhelming Struggles of Life.
D. Wrong Use of the Past.
E. Preoccupation with Self.
II. Cures for Spiritual Depression:
A. Replace Your Thoughts with His Truth.
B. Replace Your Self with Your God.
C. Replace Your Past with Your Future.
II. Cures for Spiritual Depression:
A. Replace your thoughts with His truth.
a) The Psalmist (a son of Korah) talks to himself in verses 5 and 11 of
Psalm 42.
B. Replace Your Self with Your God.
C. Replace Your Past with Your Future.
Psalm 42:5 NASB
5 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise
Him for the help of His presence.
Psalm 42:11 NASB
11 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.

7. There is some push and some pull going on in this account.
The thought comes to him, “Oh, now this is terrible!” – then he says to himself,
“Hey, why are you cast down my soul? Listen up!”
He realistically says, “This is how I feel but this is the truth and the truth must
replace how I feel.”
He talks to himself.
It is good to talk to yourself.
Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones, a medical doctor turned pastor, said we must talk to
ourselves instead of allowing ourselves to talk to us.
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Most unhappiness in life is because you are listening to yourself instead of
talking to yourself.
You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to
yourself and question yourself.
When those thoughts come to you in the morning (that’s the time when I have to
talk to myself the most) or come to you at night, you must address those issues.
You did not originate those thoughts.
Those thoughts are coming to you and saying, “This is going to happen, this is
bad.”
Tell the truth to your own heart.

8. Replace it with God’s Word.
Replace your thoughts with His Truth, then replace yourself with your God.
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II. Cures for Spiritual Depression:
A. Replace Your Thoughts with His Truth.
B. Replace Your Self with Your God.
C. Replace Your Past with Your Future.
It is natural in times of depression to think about ourselves.
To be absorbed with my needs, my problems.
That is normal and natural but bring God into the situation.
When you bring God into the situation and your focus in on Him more than
yourself, you can’t help but get elevated when you are looking at Him.
That is what Psalm 42 verse 8 is all about.
It is like a flood of hope amidst despair.
Psalm 42:8 NASB
8 The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime;
And His song will be with me in the night,
A prayer to the God of my life.
That’s the answer.
Replace yourself with your God.
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9. Here is a guy who has changed his environment.
He is up by the Golan Heights – one of the prettiest spots in the Middle East,
mountains, streams, waterfalls, huge peaks, lush green environment.
Even though he has changed his environment, that in itself is not a cure for
spiritual depression.
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The Garden of Eden was a perfect environment yet it did not solve man’s basic
problem so cleaning up our environment and revitalizing downtown depressed
areas will not solve our problems either.
Some will say, “Things are tough, I’m going to get out of this sorry town.” (or) “I’m
going to quit this stinking job!” (or) “I’m going to change spouses.”
You can do all of those things but you still have you.
Wherever you go, there you are!
All of these thoughts are still within you.
The key isn’t in changing environmentally but spiritually.
Your outlook is determined by your up-look!

10. Example:
Martin Luther went through a period of deep introspective depression. Glum,
hanging his head, moping around the house, etc.
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After a while, his wife called his bluff and dressed up in all black as if she were in
mourning.
When Martin came home that evening, he mumbled, “Who died?”
Katy said, “God is dead.”
Martin Luther said, “What? How can you say that?”
She replied, “Well, looking at your life the last several weeks, God must have
died.”
It shook him and after that he put up a sign over his study in Latin that said, “He
lives!”
It changed Martin’s focus off of himself and onto God.
It changed the way he thought and the way he lived.
Zig Ziglar would have said that he had stinking thinking and needed a check-up
from the neck-up!
II. Cures for Spiritual Depression:
A. Replace Your Thoughts with His Truth.
B. Replace Your Self with Your God.
C. Replace Your Past with Your Future.
There is a word that keeps recurring in these two Psalms – Hope!
Hope – a word for the future.

11. Psalm 43 is a psalm of hope.
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“You blew it! Well, OK, join the crowd.”
Replace your past with your future.
The Psalmist says three times to “hope in God”.
Psalm 43:1-3 NASB
1 Vindicate me, O God, and plead my case against an ungodly nation;
O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man!
2 For You are the God of my strength; why have You rejected me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
3 O send out Your light and Your truth, let them lead me;
Let them bring me to Your holy hill
And to Your dwelling places.
Psalm 43:1-3 NASB
That God would protect him, preserve him, defeat his enemies.
That God will direct him in the future by guiding him.
In verses 4-5, that he will be happy again, joy will come his way.
God will fill his heart with singing!

12. Psalm 43:4-5 NASB
4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
To God my exceeding joy;
And upon the lyre I shall praise You, O God, my God.
5 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why are you disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.
Psalm 43:4-5 NASB
So, one answer to spiritual depression is hope, people in depression often focus
on the past.
People that climb out of it often focus on the future.
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In Philippians 3:13b-14, Paul said;
“13b forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, 14 I
press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
As you look back, see God in your past and then look to the future and see God
in your future.
One definition of anxiety is envisioning a future that has no God in it.
God has been faithful in the past and He will be faithful now and in the future.
Frances Ridley Havergal gave many songs to the Christian church, many happy
songs.
“Take my heart and let it be consecrated Lord to Thee.”
Yet she suffered deep depression.
She thought mostly of herself and of her faults, defeated and lacking in joy.

13. Something changed in her life while reading the Bible in the original Greek
language.
She read 1 John 1:7 that says in English:
7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with
one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
In the original Greek, it is in the present tense and the “blood of Jesus His Son
cleanses us and continually cleanses us (in the present) from all sin”.
It was like a new day, at dawn, for her.
Here is a lady focusing on the past problems and failures and God said, “Let the
future ECLIPSE the past! I’ll cleanse you now like I cleansed you then and as I
will cleanse you in the future.”
Her focus was now on the future and what God could do from this point on rather
than just in the past.
The answer is not to go see the great Grimaldi but to go see Jesus!
The outlook is determined by the up-look!
Physical depression needs physical medicine and spiritual depression needs
spiritual medicine.
Skip Heitzig’s closing prayer:
Father, we thank You that when our soul is cast down, by whatever factors are
involved, we are not alone, some of the greatest men and women in Biblical
and extra-Biblical history have suffered depths, waves, and billows of
depression.

14. Lord, help us to replace thoughts that bombard us with the Truth that is given to
us recorded in Your Word. Help us to replace ourselves with You. Help us to
replace our past with what You have done in our past, forgiving our sins,
continuing to cleanse us and what You will do for us in the future! That we will
hope and sing and have joy and praise You. In Jesus name, Amen.
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1 Samuel 30:6 NASB
6 Moreover David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning
him, for all the people were embittered, each one because of his sons and his
daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
Application:
1. Describe what you believe to be a truly spiritual person (emotionally as
well as spiritually) see if it fits with the experiences of the psalmist and the
balance of Scripture.
2. How have you let your own expectations get in the way of what God has
been trying to teach you through an experience of life? How did your
expectation lead to anxiety or depression?
3. How are you doing with the perpetual battle of "self?" Are you even
fighting that battle or have you just surrendered to live for "Self"
altogether?

15. Sunday
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Exodus 3:4-14; 4:13-16
September 3, 2017
First Baptist Church
Jackson, Mississippi
USA
The Plan of Hope & Salvation
John 3:16 NASB
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
John 14:6 NASB
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to
the Father but through me.”
Romans 3:23 NASB
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 6:23a NASB
23a For the wages of sin is death,
• Death in this life (the first death) is 100%.
• Even Jesus, the one who doesn’t deserve death, died in this life to pay the
penalty for our sins.
• The death referred to in Romans 6:23a is the second death explained in
Revelation 21:8.
Revelation 21:8 NASB
8 “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and
immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the
lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
Romans 6:23b NASB
23b but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

16. Romans 5:8 NASB
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for
us.
Revelation 21:7 NASB
7 “He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be
My son.”
• Romans 10:9-10 explains to us how to be overcomers.
Romans 10:9-10 NASB
9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that
God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person
believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in
salvation.
Romans 10:13 NASB
13 for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
If you have questions or would like to know more, please, contact First Baptist
Church Jackson at 601-949-1900 or http://firstbaptistjackson.org/contact/