Keys to Mental Health — David Wilkerson

This message is one of the Times Square Pulpit Series. It was recorded in the Sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing to World Challenge, P. O. Box 260, Lindale, Texas 75771 or calling 214 -963 -8626.

None of these messages are copyrighted and you are welcome to make copies for free distribution to your friends.

The Sermon’s Central Theme: Good Mental Health

You have your Bible. Just leave it on your lap. I'll tell you where to go just a little bit later. We're going to go to a number of scriptures, but we're going to talk to you tonight about the key to mental health, mental, good mental health.

Hallelujah. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I need you tonight in a very special way. And I pray to you, Father, not to this congregation, but I pray to you that you would come down now and touch my body, let there be a quickening of the Holy Spirit and let the word go forth as a sharp two-edged sword and then pour in the oil.

Let there be healing tonight, Lord, let there be probing, let there be conviction, but Lord, let there be healing. Hallelujah. Lord, pour out your Holy Spirit upon us tonight, mightily in this house. Lord, we will not allow any evil spirit to come into this place and hinder the word of God.

So we take your authority and your dominion over it in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Father, thank you right now for your spirit. Make the word alive. Drive it deep in our hearts tonight. Glory to God.

Lord, anoint me. Lord, set us free to hear it, set us free to preach it. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Just a little bit more up, if you will, please. Yeah, a little too much. Thank you. The key to mental health.

America’s Mental-Health Crisis and the Collapse of Social Support

America seems to be going crazy, going mad. Our mental health institutions are swamped. The clinics and psychological hospitals, psychotic hospitals can't cope with the patient load. And the state and federal agencies are saying to us now that the mental health problem in New York State especially is unmanageable.

In fact, actually, it's out of control, absolutely out of control. People who break down are taken to the hospital, and now rather than being institutionalized, they're called what they call now stabilizing.

In other words, they take them there, and for two, three weeks, they'll fill them with drugs, tranquilize them, send them home or back out on the streets. Where is there a single New Yorker who hasn't seen what the result is outside on the street?

Have you seen all those who have been released from mental institutions now running like loose cannons on the street, ready to go off at any time? Many of them homeless, helpless, many of them are going to die on the street.

This winter, you know it's down 41st Street here between 8th and 9th, all of those big cardboard boxes from the New York Times building, they take them over there. Those are their homes. They're sleeping there.

Many of the mental cases that need to be institutionalized, hospitalized because of sin and what sin has done in their lives, and now they're being dumped right on the streets because everything is out of control.

The entire mental health situation in this nation is completely out of control. Never in history have so many people become depressed and mentally troubled. Millions of Americans are turning to cocaine and alcohol to ease that troubled mind.

That's why this city has become a crack crazy city. People wanting just a few hours of release from this depression, from the blues, from the troubling of their own minds. America is one gigantic supermarket for drugs for the pushers of the whole world.

They're coming in from Iran, they're coming in from Colombia, they're coming in from Mexico, coming in from all over the world. This is the biggest supermarket for drugs on the face of the earth. You know, even ministers now, did you read about the, or hear about the school superintendent right here in New York City who was buying two vials of crack, and he's going to be put out, and now Hollywood celebrities, sports heroes, politicians, Wall Streeters, heads of corporations, ministers, school principals, educators, they're hanging out in street corners now, they're hanging around in dark corridors waiting for their pusher.

I know right now of a man that I tried to help. He was president of a corporation, a multi-million dollar corporation. I watched that man in three months go down. I watched him come one day in a nice, nice suit, all dressed up, and three months later see him having slept on the street, filthy and dirty, and now he stands on the street looking for his pusher.

Lost everything, he's no longer in his corporation, he's gone. Airline captains, train conductors, surgeons, there are literally hundreds of doctors hooked on drugs now, 1 ,200, 1 ,200, listen to this now, 1 ,200 anesthesiologists are hooked on drugs now, 1 ,200 they've estimated.

Now these are the doctors who administer, you know, when you go into an operation, they administer the tranquilizers and anesthesia, and there's a new drug that they've been experimenting with, Prenadol, that's 1 ,500 times more powerful than crack, 1 ,500 times it's a designer drug.

In fact, there was an article recently about some anesthesiologists out on a golf course, and they were talking about sharing their party pack, they're called party packs, and you know, even if America gets ahead of their crack problem and we stop crack coming in, cocaine coming in, heroin coming in, it's just going to create a new problem just as bigger, bigger, because there are new designer drugs now.

These designer drugs are created by pharmacologists and scientists who have hooked themselves on their own formulas, and they have left their institutions and taken their formulas with them, and now in their garages, in fact, you can get, and just, I saw an article the other day, just in a shoebox this big, you can get almost $100 million in a shoebox of these new designer drugs.

Some of these new designer drugs are 6 ,000 times more powerful than crack, 6 ,000. They say just one experiment with it, and if we get rid of all the crack, get rid of the heroin, they're going to bring in speed again, and all the designer drugs, just as they're doing in London.

Gary just came home from London, what do they call them now, speed shops, acid houses, and that's spreading around London, we'll have acid houses instead of crack houses, because you see, men's minds are so troubled, they're going to do anything to try to find a little bit of relief.

They'll go for anything. See, we were told that success is the American dream. That would solve all our problems. Money would solve all our problems. The good life, the good American life, everybody wanted a piece of the pie.

You ever heard that? But someone forgot to tell them that that ladder at the top has another side, and it's a slide board. The sliding board goes right down into pits of hell. What they're doing is they're climbing the sliding board to go right down the other side into the pits of despair.

Material Success, Addiction, and the Despair of the Famous

Why is it that the richest, most successful, most famous, most beautiful people in America are the most mixed up mentally and are going to drugs and alcohol? There are four major drug treatment centers and hospitals now for the rich and famous.

Betty Ford Hospital is just one of them. They're charging $40 ,000 for six weeks of treatment. $40 ,000. You've got to be rich to even get in. How many of you remember the Beatles? Anybody remember the Beatles?

Now, listen, I remember the day that one of those Beatles on national television said, we're going to outlive Jesus Christ. That was his boast. His name was John Lennon. I can look out my window on 68th Street, and I look at the Dakota, the Dakota apartment house, that's where John Lennon was murdered, and the last five years of his life, John and Oka were imprisoned there, self-imprisonment.

They were locked into that place, stoned on drugs for five years. When that young man shot John Lennon down outside the Dakota, John Lennon was skin and bone. He was a skeleton, a walking skeleton. John Lennon did not outlive Jesus Christ.

But John Lennon never had a day of peace. He was trying to stone himself out of his mind. There was some haunting voice. There was something driving. He spent the last five years in a drunken, drugged, crazed stupor.

I don't know if you read the paper this week, but now another Beatle, Ringo Starr, has just, he was the Beatles' drummer, and his wife Barbara Bach, they've just checked into Arizona rehab clinic after eight years of booze and pills and cocaine.

And yesterday the newspaper said this, it's been an eight-year nightmare for Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach of booze and drug abuse. The couple were so deteriorated, when they went in the hospital, they looked like the walking dead.

Ringo suffers drug-induced blackouts, and he beats up his wife and doesn't even remember it. He can't remember his own songs that he's written. He has a heart problem. Both have liver damage. They were trying to drink themselves into oblivion.

Ringo checked into the Tucson clinic looking old and tired and burned out, like someone who died but was afraid to lay down. That was just on Tuesday. Eight years in a drunken stupor, trying to drown something out in the head.

The depression wouldn't go away. And the more drugs they take, the more depressed they get. Liz Taylor's back in the hospital again. One of America's most glamorous, wealthiest stars. Back in the hospital, trying to fight a demon of drugs.

And one by one they're dying off. One by one they're going into eternity with their minds haunted. Voices that can't be stilled. Depressed. The most depressed people on the face of the earth. She's got diamonds as big as rocks.

And they do her no good because there's a mind condition that can't be solved. Now, as a Christian, I'm not surprised at the mental, spiritual breakdown we're seeing all over America and the secular world.

Biblical Warnings About Fear, Knowledge, and Spiritual Breakdown

Jesus himself said that things are going to get so frightful that men's hearts would fail them for fear of watching those things that are coming on the earth. And men's hearts are failing them for fear right now.

Daniel said, knowledge shall be increased. But then Ecclesiastes said, in much knowledge there's much grief. That increases his knowledge, increases his sorrow. And this knowledge is increased. It's the knowledge that we're going to be blown off the face of this earth one of these days with hydrogen bombs.

It's the knowledge that AIDS is sweeping the country. It's the knowledge that this dream is going to burst. It's the knowledge that's bringing sorrow. You can go to Wall Street any day of the week. You can get there tomorrow if you choose.

Go down there at 3 .30, 4 o 'clock when the market closes. And you watch about 5 ,000 brokers coming out of Wall Street brokerage houses. And watch them go down two blocks, a whole area there. And watch them pour into the bars.

The bars are absolutely crowded. All dressed in blue and gray suits. All look alike, like penguins. Now, listen to me. If you're a broker, we've got a few brokers here. And you know I'm not trying to be facetious.

But I was down there recently and I watched them. I think they buy their briefcases at the same store, their suits at the same store. All brook suits with red ties. But the thing that bothers me most of all, they're like cattle.

They all go to the same bars. And they have to go and get a cocktail or two to bring them down. Coming down. Because of the tension. There's something driving. And then after a cocktail they go home and eat a quick supper.

And go back to the bar so they get enough courage to go back to work tomorrow. Now, you'd expect that because they don't have anybody to go to. They've got no one to talk to. Their psychiatrists can't help them.

Their marriages are boring to them. Almost everyone they might talk to, they're sick and tired of their marriage. There's no happiness except in a bottle or a pill or a vial of crack. And crack's spreading all over Wall Street right now.

But you see, that's to be expected because they have nowhere to go. They have no hope. They have no Savior. Now look, where do people in the world go for relief? Where do they go for something to solve this crying in the mind?

There is no hope for them outside. You see, we have a place to go, but they have none whatsoever. So they drink. They do drugs. They're trying to find just a few hours of relief. But the world does not expect Christians.

Listen to me now. The world does not expect Christians to go through the same kind of despair that they're going through. When they see Christians in despair, they say, Why should I serve your Jesus? Why should I go with you to church when you're just as depressed as I am?

You're just as blue as I am. What good is your religion? What good is your church if it doesn't bring you joy and peace of mind? You see, you've got the same kind of fear. You're troubled just like me.

What kind of a God do you serve? And I'll tell you, there are a lot of Christians that are very poor commercial for Jesus. I mean, they're very poor commercial whatsoever. They have no joy whatsoever.

I don't mean you run around with a silly Colgate grin on your face. I mean that you're not complaining. You're not grieving like the rest. And when you see the world coming apart, you can still say, Thank God I'm saved.

But you see, the truth is a great and growing number of Christians are not enjoying good mental health. Now, I'm not talking about them going insane. I've never met an insane Christian yet. I'm not talking about nervous breakdowns because we're not seeing a lot of nervous breakdowns.

And burnout's not the thing I'm talking about. I'm talking about this widespread blanket of dejection, the blues and depression that seems to be sweeping over many, many churches and Christians today.

Depression Among Families, Singles, and Young People

You know, there are husbands that come to me in the special last five years, and they say, Brother Wilkinson, I love my wife. I love my family. But something's changing in my house. I don't know what's happening to my wife.

And sometimes it's when they're in their 40s or early 50s, and they say she must be going through a change of life because my wife is so irritable. My wife can't sleep. My wife has a tiredness that comes over her that you can't describe.

There are times that she's jealous, and she doesn't want to be. She's fearful, and she hates it. I hear so many say, Brother Deep, I really am trying, but I can't take it. I can't take it anymore. I hear that.

I've heard it in this church. I get it by mail. There's something happening to my wife. I don't understand. She's going through some changes. It's not the wife I married. She's always, there's something coming over her, and she can't shake it.

I know she loves me, but Brother Deep, I can't take it anymore because I come home from work, and I'm tired, and I'm weary, and I walk in there. I hate to walk in anymore. It's so dead in my house. There's a spirit there that I can't handle anymore.

And sometimes it's the husband who's so deeply troubled in mind, and he can't pull out of a melancholy spirit that stripped him, and he feels lonely and defeated and worthless, and then he takes it out on his wife and his family, and she feels shut out.

She wants to be a part of his life, and he just comes home. Usually, if he's not where he should be with the audio, he'll park himself in front of the television, sit there, and just gaze in space. Or he'll say, leave me alone.

And not just the married couples, but the singles are affected too. Periods of incredible, incredible loneliness. A spirit of gloom that they can't describe. They don't know where it's come from. A deep, dark sadness.

An excruciating depression. It's a feeling like it's not even worth going on anymore. I got a letter from a 15-year-old girl in California. Single girl, of course. She said, Brother Dave, please, you must help me.

She'd had trouble with a boyfriend. Her boyfriend had broken her heart, went off with another girl, and left her brokenhearted, and she thought her world had come to an end. She couldn't talk to her parents.

She said, I read your book. I've got to talk. I think you could help me. I tried to call her, because she said, if I don't get help, I'm going to kill myself. And her name was Kathy. And I tried to call, and I couldn't reach her.

So I sent her a special delivery and said, Kathy, do nothing until you call this number. Collect right away. I can help you. The letter came back unopened. And it must have been her parents who scribbled a note across the outside of the envelope that says, Please send no more mail.

Kathy's no longer with us. She took her life. Now listen to me, friends. There are young people all over America on the verge of suicide. We've had all the calls here. We've had 15, 20 people raise their hands on the verge of suicide.

It's because of this mental thing that comes in. This thing that sweeps in from nowhere when you least expect it. An absolute spirit of depression. Why is there so much mental anguish among Christians?

Isn't the very thought of that a slap in the face of Jesus? Isn't? There's supposed to be supreme joy and peace in serving Christ. Why are so many Christians so full of this trouble of mind? All right.

Physical and Chemical Causes of Depression

First of all, all mental problems, all mental anguish or depression is not spiritual in nature. It's not always spiritual in nature. For example, there's such a thing the doctors call as the sugar blues.

Sugar. Now I'm going to talk practical tonight. Don't blame God. If you've just had a pint of Haagen-Dazs and a half a dozen of Mrs. Phil's chocolate chip cookies, then you say, I'm so blue. I'm so depressed.

Now you may laugh at that, folks, but we have, Americans are eating so terribly now, there's a lot of sugar blues in America. You cut out some of that sugar and you watch some of that depression go. I'll tell you something.

Listen, a doctor would have charged you $35 and I'd give it to you free. Sugar blues. I saw a secretary, not in my office, I saw a secretary who had a dozen boxes, went in there two hours later, that whole dozen donuts were gone.

By the end of the day, I pity her husband. She go home so blue. Sugar blues. I mean it, folks. God never intended us to eat the way we eat. We like hogs. That sounds crude, but it's crude to what's happening in America.

It's crude. God help us. Now, not only could it be sugar blues, but there's also chemical imbalances in the body. Now, I want you to listen very closely to me, please. God never intended Americans to live under the kind of stress that we're living under.

This is abnormal. Our society is not normal. Our society is abnormal now. There's nothing in America that's normal anymore. It's all abnormal. God never intended it to be this way, that we should be so worried over our jobs and our children, our future, our marriage.

And I'll tell you what. One of my dearest friends, Dr. Rice, a very godly Christian doctor, was with me in the service this morning. He had to fly back to Dallas. And he was sharing with me when I was preparing this message.

And he's a very godly man. My wife's had five operations for cancer over the years, and he's been a godsend in our life. He's seen us through so much. And if he doesn't have a diagnosis, he just prays for the people.

And he believes in healing, a real man of God. And he explained to me what's happening. You see, God has so arranged this body that under tension or under stress, the body produces adrenaline. That gives you sudden surge of strength.

I'll tell you what. If you saw your child under a car, suddenly you could almost pick that car up. There's a flow of adrenaline that comes into you. God put it there. But at the same time, there's another chemical that's secreted in the brain called serotonin.

Serotonin is that which helps give a sense of balance. And when adrenaline, because of stress, is overproduced, serotonin is underproduced. It's not secreted as it should. And that in turn causes a depletion in the brain called dopamine.

Dopamine. Now listen closely. I'm not giving you a medical lesson. There's a truth here. I've proven it in my own home. Now, dopamine is that secretion in the brain that gives you a sense of well-being, of balance.

It keeps you from being depressed. Now, the reason our kids that are on crack today are paranoid, permanently paranoid, is because crack, cocaine, destroys the dopamine in the brain. And it also destroys the possibility of it being repleted or produced.

So they go into absolute depression and they can't pull out. Now, this is what's happening. Now, listen closely. Sometimes, especially women, I don't know what happens, but because of the stress in America, this constant producing of adrenaline in the brain because of stress with children, family, job, future, all of these things, there's a constant flow.

And then the brain is not producing the serotonin, and then the dopamine is depleted, and then we have a chemically imbalanced individual, chemically imbalanced Christian. Now, I want you to listen, please.

There was a time that we thought epilepsy was always demon-possessed. That was demon-possessed. I remember when I was a boy, my father prayed for epileptics. We thought it was demon-possessed. Until they found out that you could put it on an EEG and you could see the brain waves.

And now there is a drug that absolutely controls epilepsy. If it were a demon, you couldn't control it. You couldn't control it. Now, my wife, I told you, had five operations for cancer. And in the process, we took her to a specialist because this was the greatest trial in our life.

I didn't know that my wife had a chemical imbalance. I didn't know that those operations, an operation, if you've had one or more operations, this is often a problem of follow-up. I'm not a doctor, but I check this out very, very carefully.

So, follow me, please. I promise that I'd be faithful in this tonight because many of you women are worried that you have a spiritual problem. And it's not spiritual for a number of you. It's a chemical imbalance in your body.

And I want you to listen closely because my dear wife, after five operations, she had a hysterectomy. Her body was not producing estrogen. And without estrogen in the body, there is an incredible, absolutely incredible kind of depression that sets in.

And I got to the place where I came in one day and I said, Honey, I pray, I seek God, but I can't handle it anymore. And she said, David, I wouldn't blame you if you walked out on me. Now, I would never do that.

But I was on my face night and day because I couldn't handle what was happening in my home. My wife loved me. She loved God. She loved the Word. But she didn't know what was happening to her body. She didn't know this terrible weariness that came over her.

She didn't know this tiredness. She didn't know this terrible jealousy that would come over her. Things that she had never bothered before. Just overwhelmed. She'd cry herself to sleep at night. In fact, a lot of sleeplessness, hardly able to sleep.

And lifting her voice and speaking out. And so many, many things that were so unlike her. And thank God for this Christian doctor who said, David, I don't think her problem's spiritual because I'd prayed for her.

I went in one day and I thought that's demoniac. I'll cast every demon out of her. I'll tell you what, if there was any spiritual being cast out, it should have been me because I didn't have the patience.

Didn't have the patience. But I couldn't understand. I'd be traveling all over America and come home to this. I dreaded coming home. I dreaded walking in because I felt her pain. You see, when women are like this, they say, just leave me alone.

Have you ever heard that, sir? Leave me alone. Let me work it out myself. And there's an isolation. And I used to say, Gwen, you have no right to shut me out. No matter how you feel. And I'm going to tell you that's true.

Sister, no matter how you feel, or brother, if you're married or if you're in a home with family, no matter how low, no matter how depressed, no matter how bad you feel, you have no right to shut your mate or your family out.

You have no right whatsoever to do that. That's ungodly, it's unchristian. He did some tests and found out that she was absolutely depleted of estrogen. He took her into his office and gave her one and a half cc's of estrogen.

Within two days, I had a new wife. I had an absolutely new wife. I saw joy. I saw victory. She said, honey, I've never felt like this in years. Now, my wife, I think it's been ten years now, and every week she has to have an estrogen shot because her body doesn't produce it.

Her body doesn't produce it at all. Two weeks ago, she went two extra days without her estrogen. And the same thing was happening again, the greatest depression. I hadn't seen it in almost a year. And I said, honey, what's happened?

She said, oh, I forgot my estrogen shot. You said, well, why can't you just pray on the Lord Healer? Well, listen, all it is, it's putting back in the body what's been depleted. It's this system. It's this American system.

It's the pressure that we're living under today. It's the sin and corruption that's in the land. And all that my wife is doing now is putting back into her body what has been depleted. It's unnatural.

It's not a narcotic. And there are some of you, dear women, now, I know there are some preachers who, they'll hear this tape and they'll say, Brother Dave doesn't believe in divine healing. They're not a preacher on the face of this earth who believes in divine healing more than I do.

We pray for the sick every night. I've seen God keep my wife alive. My wife should have been dead years ago. She's living on divine health. She's living in divine health right now. But there are some of you suffering great depression.

I would recommend you go to a good Christian brother, a good Christian man who can test and see if there is a chemical imbalance. Because, listen, I can't tell you how many ministers and others I've sent to my doctor on the verge of divorce.

Absolutely on the verge of divorce. Tried everything. Been to deliverance meetings. Deliverance meetings. Think it was demonic. And there would be a check of the blood. Be a pap smear. A few other tests.

And suddenly the deficiency was found. And within a week, the absolute healing of the marriage. Because the balance was found. We have imbalanced our bodies by the way we live and the stress that we're under.

So, not all. And I'll tell you what. I can't tell you how relieved my wife was when she found out it was not demonic. Because she loved the Lord with all her heart. She was a precious child of God. If you know her, she just has a tender, beautiful heart.

And she just hugged me one day and she said, Oh, David, I thought I was losing my mind. I thought I was losing my mind. I thought I was going insane. She said, You don't know what I've been through. I said, Well, I tried, honey.

You couldn't talk. She said, Well, honey, you can't talk about it. You don't know how to describe it. You can't express it. It's so deep. I didn't know how to tell you. How can you describe those feelings?

And brother, I'll tell you what. There are some doctors that are absolutely unfeeling. They don't care because my wife would go and they'd say, Ah, grow up, is what they were trying to say. You know, doctors are used to being conned.

I know that. But, you know, a lot of doctors are just absolutely insensitive to what women are going through. They'll give you a test and they won't even check it out the way it should be checked. You need to demand it if you go.

But I'll tell you what. It's almost as if she would go to the doctor and they made her feel like she was putting it on, like she was faking it. Sister, do you know what I'm talking about? Have you ever been to a doctor and they make you feel like you're just faking it?

Or maybe your husband thinks you're faking it? Or others think you're faking it? Brother, sister, stand back. You don't have the slightest idea what she's going through. God give you grace and strength.

Now, what I just told you is like telling overweight people that are obese that their problem is glands. When actually only one out of a hundred are gland problems. And so almost everybody that's overweight says, I've got a gland problem.

No, it's a pork chop problem. It's not a gland problem. Now, all right, now we're going to get down to the nitty gritty. Now listen to me close. Now, having said all that, let me say this. There is a depression that's demonic.

Saul as an Example of Demonic Depression

Now listen closely, please. Its result is stubbornness, disobedience, and self-will. And there are some of you hearing me tonight and some of you hearing this tape that are under the evil influence of an evil spirit of depression.

And I'm going to show it to you in the Word of God. I want you to go to 1 Samuel. Go to 1 Samuel, please. We're going to show you the classical example of an evil spirit causing depression. It's the life of Saul.

1 Samuel, 16th chapter. 1 Samuel, 16th. I want you to go to verse 14. Are you still with me? If you are, say, Amen. Amen. All right. Glory to God. We're going to get to the bottom of this thing tonight.

Hallelujah. You see, some preachers won't have the courage to stand and tell you what I told you just now. They think that robs you of your faith. It doesn't rob you of your faith at all. I can't stand up here and tell you anything but what I know to be the truth in my family and what I know to be the truth from the Word of God.

Now listen closely here to 1 Samuel 16, verse 14. But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. And Saul's servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee.

This was a depressing spirit, an evil depressing spirit. All right, look this way, please. There are great mental disorders that can be the result of the Holy Spirit leaving the body. When the Holy Spirit leaves a body, that's an invitation for evil spirits to move in.

It's very clearly shown here. Do you know that God is still in control of everything that's ever been created? God is still... Listen, He's still king of the flock. There's no demon that can make a move without His permission.

They couldn't even enter the swine without permission from Jesus. Is that correct? There are so many instances in the Word of God that prove this. Do you know that Job couldn't be harassed by the devil until the Lord took the wall down?

Didn't the devil come to God and say, I can't get you, you've got a wall around you. And he removed the wall so that he could be tested. The devil can't touch you unless our God puts down the wall. Now, it's not that God creates the evil spirits.

The evil spirits are there, but you can't get away. I've studied and looked at this verse from every angle, from the commentators and everything else. You can't get away that this evil spirit was sent by the Lord.

God says, I'm moving out, and He commanded an evil spirit of depression to move in because He controls all the forces of good and evil on the face of the earth. Nothing happens without His permission.

It has to happen by His permission. But there's a reason for this permission. The reason is because Saul wanted his own way. He was a stubborn, self-willed man. He refused to take God's advice or advice from anybody.

He had never gotten rid of a spirit of rebellion that was in him. He could blame somebody for every one of his problems. He always said, the people did it. They did it. I was afraid of the people. Everywhere you turn, you hear Saul saying, the people did it.

They made me do it. You've heard the others say, the devil made me do it. He's saying, the people made me do it. I want you to, let's look at life of Saul here and see how an evil spirit can possess a man and bring horrible depression and death.

Look at Saul's life, if you will. 1 Samuel 10 .1. This man is a type of a Christian, certainly because he was a man of God. And the Bible said, these things happened unto them for examples to us upon whom the ends of the world have come.

1 Samuel 10 .1. Then Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it upon his head and kissed him. This is Saul, and said, Is it not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance? Now, do you agree with me that this man was anointed by God?

If you do, say Amen. Look at verse 6. And the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy, and shalt be turned into another man. Look at verse 10. And when they had come thither to the hill, behold, a company of prophets met him, and the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them.

All right, look at me please. Saul is anointed, he prophesies, he's been filled with the Holy Ghost, he's been turned into another man, and the Bible said also that he traveled with those that gathered around him, had a heart after God, he was in good company.

See ye him whom the Lord hath chosen? Verse 24, there's none like him among all the people, there's none like him. He's surrounded by godly people, whose hearts God had touched, the Scripture says, and for a while Saul walks with God.

For a while he has great victories. Now, look at me please. Look at, get this please. He's a type of the modern Christian who goes along winning a number of victories, walking among Christian friends.