3. The Holy Spirit in Counseling

Last week, we were looking at the heading, A Crisis in Counseling. And if you remember, we didn't quite finish. There was one section that we didn't finish. So I put down a crisis in counseling continued, and then we'll move on to the next role of the Holy Spirit in counseling.

So if you remember, we were gonna look last week at an overview of Freudian theory. And we just kind of ran out of time, and I didn't want to rush through it. And the reason is even though Freud has been in great measure debunked, a lot of psychologists, psychiatrists don't hold to his theories anymore.

Yet this was the theory that started the whole thing. He's considered to be the granddaddy of psychoanalysis. So I thought that it's important to see what his theory is or what his theory was as it pertains to biblical counseling.

And if you notice, I keep making a very big distinction between what is biblical and what is secular. And by doing an overview of his theory, I think you'll see what I was getting at. According to Freud, the person, the human being has three main components, okay?

First is the ego, then you have the superego, and then you have the id, all right? I'll explain a little bit of what he means by that. The id is man's basic primitive impulses. It's raw emotion. You know, I see something, I want it, I take it.

That's basically the id. It's unrestrained and on an impulse level. The superego is roughly equivalent to the conscience. And I say roughly because it's not exactly the same. And I'm not gonna get too technical here.

So the superego is roughly equivalent to the conscience. The ego is the arbiter between the superego and the id, the conscious self, okay? Now let's see how that plays out. The superego is socialized by persons, into the person by his authorities.

So in other words, remember the superego now is like the conscience, all right? So how is it socialized? Well, parents teach, they instruct. Teachers, the church, and that's a very important one in Freudian theory, all right?

So according to Freud, the problem with mentally ill is an over-socialized superego. All right, now remember the ego is the conscience and it's been taught by parents, teachers, the church, and other places as well.

So you can start to see how this comes into conflict with what the scripture teaches. Conflicts arise when the id is frustrated by the superego. In other words, you take any one of your primitive impulses, whether it be greed, envy, lust, whatever, and you want what you want when you want it.

That's what the ego does. I want what I want when I want it. Well, the conflicts arise when your id is doing that, but your superego is saying, don't do it. And this is where you have the little cartoon with the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other shoulder, saying, you know, do it, do it.

No, don't do it, okay? So the ego functions on the level of responsibility, whereas the id and the superego function on the level of irresponsibility. And I'm using responsibility here in a case of being responsible, not just totally without input from other sources.

But you can see irresponsibility. The superego, according to Freud, is not responsible for what it does because it has been socialized. So when there's a conflict between the id, superego, and the ego, notice what happens.

The person experiences guilt feelings. And I want you to notice something. Notice he calls these guilt feelings, not real guilt. So in other words, if your id is prompting you to take something that doesn't belong to you, you take it, your superego is saying, hey, stop, don't take that.

The problem is you have guilt feelings, not guilt. So Freudian therapists try to make the patient feel better by dispelling these guilt feelings through a process called ventilation. Or we just shorten it, venting.

And that can be done in many, many different ways. Ventilation is the releasing of the person's pent-up guilt feelings. Notice, guilt feelings again. Freud advocated a process he called socialization.

Socialization is getting the person to change his standards. So in other words, if you see something you wanted, you go and you just take it, moving it from your id, your superego says, stop that because you've been taught by your parents not to steal or the church not to steal.

What Freud advocates is you gotta change your standards, gotta get that superego to say, no, it's okay, you want it, it's okay. And I'm not making that up. So what is the result of Freudian psychology?

It has made people more irresponsible because they teach him, don't listen to your superego, you know, change your standards and it's okay. You had a good reason for taking that substance, whatever it is that you didn't, that doesn't belong to you.

So it's made people more immoral and amoral is a difference. Immoral is going against morality, amoral is saying there is no such thing as morality. It has made people more antagonistic toward Christianity, right?

Here's Freud's view of Christianity. Freud believed Christianity was an illusion invented by man that had to be dispelled. Freud believed the main cause of ills of society is the battle between the id and the superego.

And now we come down to the bottom line and why I wanted to go through this in the first place. The Bible teaches that the main cause of ills of any society can be traced to sin. Notice the difference.

Freud believed the main cause of the problems in society is the battle between the id and the superego, battle between inside you. Bible says, no, what's the main causes of ills of society? Sin, very simple.

Questions, that's what I wanted to go through last week. Yes, Alex. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Especially since Freud has come into somewhat of disrepute. People don't like to identify themselves as Freudian.

But Freud would, if you would expand on this, Freud would go back to searching for blame. You remember from last week? What does Freudian, what does psychology do? Goes, digs into your past to find somebody to blame.

Reminds me of the story of the two psychologists, Freudians, and they were having dinner, and one said, oh, I made a terrible Freudian slip the other day. And he says, really, what happened? Well, I was having dinner with my mother, and I meant to say, please pass the mashed potatoes.

And it came out, you ruined my life, you witch. Sorry about that. All right, now this is starting the next session that I wanted to get into. And this one is called the Holy Spirit in Counseling. I hope you'll be able to see why I wanted to go through Freudian psychology first before we get into the Holy Spirit in counseling.

Next week, we're gonna actually look at what exactly is biblical counseling, but we have to set it up by understanding the role of the Holy Spirit. And to do that, we need to understand what sanctification is all about.

To sanctify means to set apart. That's the literal definition of it. Okay, we know if you go through your scriptures, we know that Jesus was sanctified. John 17, 19, for their sakes, I sanctify myself that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.

This is Jesus telling us we ought to be sanctified, just as he was set aside for a very specific purpose. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you are sanctified for a very specific purpose. Important to note, while holiness is a part of sanctification, it's not the whole meaning.

Jesus was already holy before he came to this earth. He was sanctified and set apart for a particular mission on this earth, all right? And it's in that sense that all Christians are sanctified. All Christians are sanctified or set apart for a particular purpose.

You can see how this is important when we talk about counseling somebody who's going through a crisis of the conscience. Low self-esteem, which I argue against anyway, but that's another story. But one of the first things that you do in counseling is you wanna give somebody hope.

If you are a believer, if you've been saved by Jesus Christ, you are set aside for a particular purpose. And so if you're looking for not self-esteem, but you can have esteem, you have worth in who you are in Christ.

Now, there's three aspects of sanctification, and I hope this makes things more clear. There's positional sanctification, experiential sanctification, and ultimate sanctification. And what we mean by that, first positional sanctification is also regeneration.

That's when you are in fact born again, all right? We see that in 1 Corinthians 6, starting in verse 9. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor feminine, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Such were some of you, but you were washed. Such were some of you, but you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. If you've been born again, you were a sinner.

You still sin, but you are no longer identified as the sinner. That's why in the New Testament, the epistles are written to the saints. Again, we know this from our studies in 1 John. We never get to the place on this earth where we're not going to sin, but we are not defined by our sin.

We are saints who sin, okay? And notice, such were some of you. Continue, Hebrews 10, 10. By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. How do we know we are sanctified?

Because it's not through what we have done, but it's by the offering of Jesus Christ. It's what he has done for us. Second is experiential sanctification. And this is what most often, when you hear somebody talking about being sanctified, this is what they're talking about.

Experiential sanctification. We see it in Romans 12, verses one and two. Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

And do not be conformed to this world. And here it is. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. It is this transformation.

The actual Greek word that's used here is metamorphosis. You are changed from one to another, from being against God, from being now you're in Christ Jesus, and you are transformed. And that is an ongoing process.

Romans 6, 13, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and the members as instruments of righteousness to God.

Notice this is something that we are told that we must do. Ephesians 5, 18 says very clearly, do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. Two different things, all right?

It doesn't mean you can't have a drink. It says you can't get drunk. And then you have ultimate sanctification or what we often call a glorification. 1 John 3, 2, beloved, now we are children of God and it has not appeared as yet what we will be.

We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we see him as he is. Just went through this only a few months ago in our Sunday morning service. Remember this, sanctification is the work of the Trinity.

And an understanding of this essential doctrine is necessary for the counselor or any mature believer to carry out his work of counseling. Therefore, it is essential that the counselor establish the salvation of the individual.

If you're ever called to sit with somebody, somebody wants to bear the soul, they're having an issue and they know that you're a believer in Christ and they're looking for advice, the first thing you have to do is make sure where do they stand with the Lord?

Because you can't make promises that the Holy Spirit is gonna guide them if they do not have the Holy Spirit. So the very, you'll see this in another session as well. So every time you are set to counsel with somebody, you have to ascertain what is their spiritual condition.

All right?

Because the work of counseling involves experiential sanctification. That's where effort is put in. Paul said, I don't have it on the slide, but Paul says in Philippians, work out your sanctification with fear and trembling.

All right?

One of the things we need to understand is fellowship with God is broken by sinning. Confession of sin restores that relationship. So you establish if a person is a believer, then what they're experiencing through as they're going through the issues, whatever they happen to be, need to understand that fellowship with God is broken.

If they're in sin, and that's what they're coming to you with, you need to understand what is happening. They have broken fellowship with God. And that's why confession and forgiveness is such a crucial part.

Of biblical counseling. Sanctification, 1 John 1, 9. That's why we pray this every Sunday morning. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Experiential sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who is at work in you, sanctifying you, transforming you from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his son. The role of the Holy Spirit.

You need to understand the Holy Spirit is called the paraclete. That's a Greek word. Literally means to come alongside. So the Holy Spirit is the paraclete who has come in Christ's place to be another counselor.

And you can use a lot of different words. You can use another counselor, another comforter. And all of that is true. And so Christian counseling must be carried on in harmony with the regenerating and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.

Follow that? Christian counseling, true biblical counseling, is really nothing but Christ's discipleship. You're bringing the person, he's broken fellowship with God because of whatever he's committed.

And we're trying to work together biblically to bring that person back into fellowship with God. And all personal holiness comes from the activity of the Holy Spirit in human lives. Why can you do anything that is pleasing to God?

Because as believers, you have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you. I'll just pause here for a minute. This is why we react so strongly when people say, oh, you can be saved, but not have the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

That's absolutely false because it's only through the baptism of the Holy Spirit that you one, are regenerated, and two, can work out your sanctification with fear and trembling because it's the Holy Spirit who is working in you to will and to do, okay?

Does that make sense? That's a crucial point.

Yes.

Yeah, briefly, when you are regenerated, when you repent of your sins, you are baptized in the Holy Spirit because you were baptized into the church who was baptized with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

The major event, baptism in the Holy Spirit, that's what took place at Pentecost. In fact, we just preached on this not that long ago. It was part of the history of redemption. And now, subsequent to that, when you are saved, you are automatically baptized into the Holy Spirit.

Charismatics believe that it's a second blessing that enables you, that equips you for ministry of some sort, giving you some miraculous gift as proof of it. It's just not in the scriptures. It's not accurate.

Plus, it means it's going against so much of the Word of God because you can do nothing apart from Christ. So, that means you're saved and you can't do anything until some manifestation that you have to pray for.

And nowhere does it tell you that you have to pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Okay, does that answer your question? The results of the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer are given in Galatians 5, 22 to 23.

This is no big surprise. This is the fruit of the Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is in your life, all of these fruit should be seen to some measure, although it's in seed form. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Want to know if the Holy Spirit is in your life? How do you stack up? It is impossible to generate these qualities apart from the Holy Spirit working in the life of the believer. These are not things that you can just churn up on yourself and, you know, give it the old college try.

It's just because they are supernatural. Just as the elements, the characteristics and the beatitudes, meekness, kindness, and those type of things, they are given to you by the Holy Spirit. You can't manufacture them.

They're not behavioral traits. They're gifts of the Spirit. And bypassing the Holy Spirit amounts to a denial of human depravity and the affirming of the false doctrine of man's innate goodness. See, Freud would say man is innately good.

And we say, what? Man is totally depraved. And it's only through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit that we are filled with His Spirit and then can overcome the depravity of our heart. And all true personality changes that involve the sanctification of the believer come from the Holy Spirit.

Again, it's not something that you have to strive from, you know, reach down inside of you and pull it up, you know. It's not there. Only through the Holy Spirit. Personality change is a change in the being of the person, not merely behavioral change.

This is a crucial point. There is a legitimate change. This is one of the disagreements I have with AA. I've used AA when I was a supervisor of men and it's helped a lot of people, but I just have this one particular thing.

I don't like it when they have somebody stand up, hi, my name is Richie, I'm an alcoholic. Not if you're saved. You were an alcoholic. You may still slip. You may still get drunk, but your identity is changed if you have the Holy Spirit and you have the ability to not drink again or take drugs again.

Sanctification is growth away from sin and toward righteousness. This is part of the role of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit uses different means to sanctify the individual. It's not the same for everybody and it's different means.

These are called the means of grace. Notice the means of grace. What is grace? Grace is that unmerited favor. So what are the means of grace? The ministry of the word. This is why we constantly tell people, shouldn't be missing the meetings of the church.

If possible, whenever the church doors are open, you should be there. Now, that's not possible for anybody. It's not possible for me. But we wanna avail ourselves of the ministry of the word whenever we can.

The ordinance of the sacraments. This is one of the reasons why we changed only one. There are numerous reasons. Why do we have the Lord's Supper every week? A lot of churches just do it once a month because it's a means of grace and it's important.

Prayer.

Christian fellowship. These are all and there are other means of grace and it's by exercising these means that we are sanctified. The Holy Spirit always works in harmony with his will revealed in scripture.

If you have somebody come and tell you, well, it's the Lord's will to do this and it doesn't line up with scripture, you tell him, I'm sorry, but I don't believe that. He always works. Why do you think that's so?

Why is it that the Holy Spirit always works in harmony with his revealed will in scripture?

Yeah.

He wrote the scriptures. So, of course, I mean, do you think for one minute, the Holy Spirit, who was the ultimate author who inspired the writers of scripture to write down what they wrote, how could he work in opposition to what he has said you should do?

I mean, it's that simple. This isn't rocket science. And this is something we need to do, need to remember as well. The Holy Spirit chooses his own times, means, and occasions for going. That's what you should be doing.

You should be doing his work. We don't control how the Holy Spirit acts in us and what he does in us. We depend upon him. We can pray that he would do certain things, but he works according to his own time.

And I just threw this in there. Remember, the Holy Spirit is a person. It's not just some ethereal essence out there somewhere. No, he's a person. Three persons in the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Just because he's Spirit doesn't mean he's not a person. In fact, in our confession, I think they refer to it as subsistence. The Holy Spirit is God with us. This is through the power of the Holy Spirit that we can say that God dwells within us.

And the Christian counselor's abilities are gifts of the Spirit exercised under the Spirit's calling. If you're ever counseling somebody, don't ever think that it's your expertise that is going to help the person.

In fact, I tell people when they come in, I've had many people refer to me not from our church for counseling. And when I sit them down, I says, you know, why are you coming? Well, we heard that you do, that you have some measure of success at counseling.

I said, well, then you're in big trouble. Don't depend upon me. Depend upon the Holy Spirit to work in your heart. And that's my goal is to help you see what the Holy Spirit is saying to you through his word.

Therefore, the counselor should always seek direction and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Prayer is a big part of biblical counseling. Reading the scriptures is a big part. Remember this too, the use of human agency does not bypass the work of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit will use human agency to accomplish his purpose. That's why it's necessary. If somebody comes and they say, you know, I'm really troubled, I don't know what to do. You don't tell them, well, just go read John 3, 16 twice and call me in the morning.

No.

You use the gifts that God has given to you. If somebody's coming to you for guidance or for help, they obviously have seen something in you that would make them believe that you can help them. And that's what we should be doing.

We should be helping people based upon the gifts. Just don't get enamored with the gifts as though it is something that you manufactured or innately in you. A gift is a gift. That means I didn't have it until it was given to me.

So human agency does not bypass the work. The Holy Spirit expects counselors to use the Holy Scriptures as the final authority in counseling. I mean, it should be easy. We are reformed in our theology.

We believe in Sola Scriptura, we believe in Toto Scriptura, and we believe in the sufficiency and the efficiency of the Word of God. And so we are expected to use the Scriptures as the final authority.

It is serious error for the counselor to set his gifts, methods, or techniques above the Holy Spirit or to replace the Word of God. That sounds like, why would I even put that in there? Because it's done all the time.

There are, quote, Christian counselors who never use the Word of God. They're using psychology textbooks and man-made methodologies. So that's an important one. Rather, he should study the Word of God and use it.

2 Timothy 2 .15, be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the Word of truth. I think we have time for this. I've got a few slides left, but this is important, and I think it really ties in here.

I put questions up just in case we didn't have time, but here's the question. What's wrong with the mentally ill? Firstly, it's important to distinguish between real physical problems and sinful habit patterns.

There are many malfunctions which affect the brain and cause true mental illness. We need to understand that going in. Not everybody who's acting bizarre is suffering from emotional problems. There are real physical things that can cause these, for example, brain damage, tumors, gene inheritance, glandular disorder, chemical disorder.

These are all real possibilities, and if somebody is suffering from brain damage or a tumor, and they start acting in a bizarre way or talking funny, don't start looking for sinful habit patterns. You know what it is.

They have tumors. Apart from those genuine organic malfunctions, the mentally ill are people with unresolved personal problems, and here's where the difficulty comes in. How do you, you have to try to determine.

That's why, well, let me back up. You want a person who's suffering from one of these manifestations to have a medical examination to rule out any physical cause, all right, because a lot of times, the mentally ill are just people with unresolved personal problems, all right, and I'll get into that.

Bizarre behavior may be a camouflage to divert attention from deviant behavior. A person starts acting bizarre, and they realize that that's, people say, oh, that's okay, that's okay, and they're not held accountable, and they develop that as a habit.

The mental institutions are full of people just like that. Bizarre behavior patterns can become habitual when the person realizes he can escape accountability for his actions. If I run around, take off all my clothes, and run around screaming and everything else, oh, we gotta put him away, and what does it do?

It diverts from what he really just did. Many mental illnesses are merely habitual behavior patterns to avoid responsibility, and the counselor's job is to evaluate information, evaluate emotions and actions, and to determine what's the cause.

Is it truly something organic? Is the person really mentally ill, or are they just acting out, and to avoid responsibility, and this is something all behaviors of concern to the counselor. Any behavior defined as sin in scripture must be treated as sin and not as an illness.

Yeah.

The counselor's job is to differentiate between those with genuine organic mental disorders and those with sinful habit patterns. The counselor can still aid those who are truly mentally ill by giving comfort and ministering God's word.

You don't throw somebody out the door who may be suffering from some sort of mental illness, obviously not if they're dangerous, but you can still give comfort, minister the word. Many people who are, quote, classified as mentally ill are aware enough of what's going on that you can actually minister the gospel to them, and this goes even for autistic children of certain, depending on how autistic they are.

There's things that you can minister to them to help them along, and that's the end of it. Any final thoughts or questions?

All right.

So would you say that?

Yeah, which can manifest itself. A physical issue can manifest itself socially and emotionally, all right? But so it's not always that easy to determine, and again, if you're not experienced and trained at this, I wouldn't say that every, just because you're a Christian, you should start counseling mentally ill people, but I just wanted to throw it in just so that you get the idea.

Just because somebody says they're mentally ill doesn't mean they are. A lot of, there's a lot of fakers, a lot of people faking it so they get out of criminal responsibility.

Okay.