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December 17, 2018:
Steve Bloem, counselor, author & founder of Heartfelt Counseling Ministries, who will address his book,
“The PASTORAL HANDBOOK of MENTAL ILLNESS: A Guide For Training & Reference”
Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen.
Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on the 17th, I can't even say the word, 17th day of December 2018.
Also want to give a shout out to my very dear longtime friend Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. It is his birthday today and I hope that God blesses him with a wonderful celebration with his family, friends and loved ones.
Today we have a first-time guest and I am very enthusiastic to interview this individual because I think this is a topic especially that every man, woman, especially those who are counselors, especially those who are pastors, elders, and I consider those the same office biblically, deacons or anyone who has family, friends or loved ones who are suffering with mental illness.
I'm speaking of Steve Bloom and he is a counselor, author and founder of Heartfelt Counseling Ministries and we're going to be addressing his book, The Pastoral Handbook of Mental Illness, a guide for training and reference and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Steve Bloom.
Hey Chris, good to be with you, thanks for having me. And by the way, am I pronouncing your name.
Correctly? I don't know if it's Blome or Bloom. That's Blome, it's a dot b-l-o-e-m, Blume. Yeah,.
So I did pronounce it correctly then. Yeah. Great. Well, tell our listeners something about Heartfelt Counseling Ministries. Oh yeah, Heartfelt Counseling Ministries is a non-profit.
With the IRS, a 501c3 charitable agency and we decided to actually start it. We decided to, after my daughter was killed in a car accident and it was on 9 -1 -1 that evening and on the way back and on the way back and a guy that was on heroin and just hit her head on and killed her and we were right up there, you know, we saw it.
We were the first responders, but when I heard those words, she has never been more, any more devastated and I saw how life is fragile and how it's temporary. It's a breath God gives and he takes away and therefore we, Robin and I started.
How old was your daughter when she was tragically killed in that accident? She was 19 years old. Wow. Well, I want to somehow introduce you to dear friends of mine, Jerry and Fern Hill. They run the Timothy Hill Children's Ranch in Riverhead, Long Island, New York, which is a home for homeless boys and they also have a new division for homeless girls, which is a recent development and that ministry was started because Timothy Hill, a child prodigy before the age of 13, used to see how his parents lovingly welcomed foster children into their home and he had a dream to start a home for homeless children that would be positioned on a ranch because Timothy loved horses and farm animals and his parents were surprised when they were getting phone calls from real estate agencies that their 12-year-old son was getting prices on land to start a home for homeless children and tragically Timothy, while riding his bicycle to school, was hit by a truck and killed at the age of 13 and Jerry and Fern Hill knew that they had to make Timothy's dream come true and by God's mercy they did and even Lorne Green from Bonanza Fame helped them by hosting telethons on television for this because Lorne Green used to live in eastern Suffolk County in East Marion, Long Island, and so that ministry has been running for over three decades and it is a very wonderful ministry.
So I got to get you hooked up with them because of the similarity. Yeah, that'd be great, yeah, because we work with homeless people in.
Downtown Grand Rapids. Not only was I a clinical social, but at the same time was reaching out for reaching out to the homeless and the education they need or dealing with the alcoholics.
Wow. Well, what we usually do on Iron Trip and Zion Radio when we have first-time guests is we have them give an abbreviation or a summary of their salvation testimony, what kind of religious atmosphere you were raised in, if any, and what providential circumstances our sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you.
Sure, and I stayed there until I was 17. I decided, that's when I got saved, I got saved at a camp in northern Michigan about as far as you can go with the lower peninsula and I was in the, it was the third time I'd gone to this camp.
I was just preoccupied with girls and things like that and they were having the Lord's Supper and all of a sudden I was like, you know, I thought I was confronted by Christ. I said, Steve, why do you keep, you know, missing me?
Why do you keep going on without me? And I just, wonderfully, and I ended up going to Bath-Ordain there at 19 because I'd been along with the Lord. And when in your life did you.
Realize that you had a call to be a counselor? Well, I realized I had a call to be a pastor,.
But it wasn't until I had the and the horrors of that, that things for me, and then it helped for me. And then I finished up with a ministry, a master minister, and I finished that up at Baptist Bible Seminary in Clarkside.
So then I started directing my, I saw God directing me to not only be a pastor or a counselor, but through the, I actually got depressed and then I worked at a psychiatric hospital, then I worked for 10 years as a clinical case manager along with the Servant Center of Grand Rapids.
And so that's how I gradually developed that counseling, especially I read a lot of books on mental illness, have been doing that. Well, praise God,.
The church is better for it now that you are blessing the body of Christ with counseling, something that is, I think, very seriously and urgently needed. And I think as life gets more complicated as the years go by, it's even more urgently needed, especially when things that are, have always been considered in the past as being aberrant and bizarre and so on, are being deemed as blessings and things that people should be celebrated for and that people should be viewed as heroes for being involved in.
And of course, I'm not broad brushing this with all of mental illness, but I'm speaking of things like transgenderism and a multitude of other things that are viewed upon as being the cream of the crop of humanity, if you will.
Yep. And I'm going to give our email address out for our listeners, if you would like to join us on the air with a question for Steve Blum. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N as in Nancy, Z as in zebra, E as in Edward, N as in Nancy at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.
Please, as always, give us at least your first name, your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.
And I could readily see a subject like this lending itself to people having personal and private questions, either regarding their own life or a loved one who is battling with mental health issues. So that's chrisarnson at gmail .com.
The issue at hand, I think, is very important because I'm certain, in fact, I know pastors personally who have wrung their hands and thrown up their hands and have reached a plateau in their ministry when it comes to counseling certain members of their congregation who are suffering with mental health issues that are far too deep for that pastor's personal experience and knowledge to handle.
Because there are obviously issues involving the mind that are quite beyond the scope of what one would learn ordinarily at a bible school or a seminary. But if you could if you could tell us what was it that specifically drove you to write the book that we are addressing today, the Pastoral Handbook of Mental Illness, a guide for training and reference.
Okay, I was doing a lot of blogs on grief and also on mental illness. And I realized, you know, that this is something that I needed to know more about. And so I was depressed myself and I wasn't getting the right counseling.
And I was getting all different versions of legal. They said, go off your medications. Others said psychological. So I wanted to discover for myself and I wanted to help others. A lot of people think that I'm into psychology, but I'm not really into psychology.
But I am an assistant into psychiatry as far as referring people to psychiatry so that they can know how this is treatable. Now I also know, you know, loss issues and even things like the dark night of the soul.
Let's go back to the Puritans. Some Thomas Mann had some great articles on depression and preached about being in darkness doesn't mean you're in sin.
So yeah, did that answer your question? Yes. And we have a question from a listener in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Ted, who said, how does Mr. Bloom's approach to Christian counseling differ from those who believe that because the Bible is sufficient for all life, we therefore have no need for mental health professionals and that psychology and psychiatry are completely incompatible with Christian belief and should therefore be avoided at all costs?
That I would imagine is an extreme view because there are issues that are organic, although they might be a minority of issues. I'm not sure. I'm not the expert that you are. But yeah, if you could answer.
Ted's question. Well, yeah, I mean, it's back to what is the sufficient? What does that mean? And, you know, I mean, we kind of give the illustration that you got a guy that's flying a plane and there's a problem.
So he steps aside with his Bible and he's trying to fix it. So he wouldn't have much trust in him. So we think everything should come under the lens, but not that we should leave mental illness because the pastor or handbook of mental illness actually talks about people in the Bible who have had depression.
And Trifold Job had a trifold depression. He had a, it was terrible reactive depression. He had a biological depression and he was put in depression. So, but I completely not, and for the most part, I agree with that, except for I go back to the fall and what happened in the fall as far as diseases or mental illness.
Yes. Well, the Bible obviously is our sole infallible and inerrant authority absolutely in the church, but there are details in everyday life that aren't specifically addressed in the Bible. I mean, the Bible is sufficient for all we need to know in regarding obedience to God, in regard to salvation, in regard to how we are properly to worship him and how they are, they are fully sufficient for every good work.
But obviously I'm assuming that just like a physician needs to go to medical school, there would be a need in certain, in a certain realm for psychiatry, but I'm assuming you would agree also that one needs to be extremely careful and even have perhaps the counsel of wise and biblically literate elders before one accepts the counsel and guidance of a psychiatrist.
And I am differentiating that from psychology, although I'm not going to discount all of psychology either, but there are things that are due, don't you agree that there are things that are due to organic problems in the brain?
Oh, definitely. I mean, they can be, you know,.
You can have a stroke, you can have dementia, you can have things that can happen in the brain, but sometimes people don't realize that mental illness is an organic thing and it's a deficiency of neurotransmitters, it's appetite, your sex drive, your outlook, and those can be held, I'm not talking about by anti-anxiety drugs, which are addicting, but actually antidepressants and mood stabilizers are effective, not only have I seen in my own life, but in others.
But you don't have to go on that. I mean, psychiatry, I've crossed with psychiatrists and psychologists many times over issues that were more morality or the view on Buddhism, or, you know, and I don't think we should get our moral advice.
He doesn't have a lot to say.
Unless, of course, he might be a Christian, he might be a godly.
Well, he's a Christian, yeah, that's different.
Before I ask any more of my own questions, I wanted to ask some of our other listeners' questions. By the way, Ted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, you have won a free copy of the book we are addressing today, The Pastoral Handbook of Mental Illness, a Guide for Training and Reference.
Please give us your full mailing address in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, so that CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, can ship that out to you at no cost to you or to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We have, let's see here, we have John in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and I have to enlarge John's email because the font is microscopic, and let me repeat our email address again while I'm doing that.
It's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com if you have a question for Steve Bloom on mental illness. How should we think biblically about helping those diagnosed with bipolar disorder? And the second question is, how can the church come alongside those with mental health struggles?
So the first issue is about bipolar disorder, and the second question is about the church's responsibility as congregants, as well as leaders, to come alongside people with.
All kinds of mental health struggles. Well, bipolar disorder is one of the most awful disorders from mania, and then you go down into depression and in between that, but probably the question I'm asked the most by families and other people, what can I do with my bipolar husband?
He doesn't think he needs any help, and so that, in mania, that's why there's a lot of problems with that. As far as in the church, I started a support group material that I published on my own, and it's like an eight-week guide from the scripture, and then going through that, and so people who want to learn more about this, and maybe the parents of children, maybe the husband or wife that may be suffering with themselves, they get a lot of comfort and a lot of strength in that, can be Christians afflicted with mental illness.
And so we've seen, you know, sometimes where I remember at one church I was at, there was a guy who I knew well, he came to my group, but he went into a mania because the doctor let him drop his medications, and you know, he was standing out on a tree because he thought that tree was the only place in the universe that he would be saved.
And one of the ladies who was cooking the meal in the kitchen got nervous, so they called the police. Well, you know, I mean, he didn't want to leave that place, and so there's a boy, and he got off his meds, he was naked outside his door.
He was a wonderful Christian. He knew the Lord. You know, the cultural mandate says, you know, get him help. And so I've also seen people dragged out with that of mental illness. Happens with me. I get up and say, look, I know what to do.
I know how to help. And so the stigma is still very great in the church, and so we can deal with that by bread, and you'd be amazed how many people in your church, how many people are hiding mental illness who are in the church.
Some so to the point where they stopped going to church because they were so roughly treated about it.
Well, you have also won, John, a free copy of the book that we are addressing today by our guest Steve Blom. That book, as you know, is the Pastoral Handbook of Mental Illness, a Guide for Training and Reference.
And since you live in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, want to pick that book up in a week or so from the Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, since it is right there in Carlisle, and sparing CVBBS .com, the shipping cost, sending that to you.
So that should be, we don't have the books yet, but we'll probably, God willing, have them in a week or so, or should I say CVBBS will have them. Let's see here. We have a first-time questioner from France, Yves, I don't know how to pronounce the city in France, N-A-N-T-E-S, Nantes, that's probably a complete butchering of the city.
I don't know.
But Yves says, what happens if a counselor gives conflicting advice to a patient? What can the patient do? I guess that would depend upon what it was in conflict with. Our listener didn't, is it in conflict with the Bible?
Is the counselor conflicting himself? But try to make a workable question out of that, Steve, and answer it to the best of your ability.
Well, count human beings. So they're going to make mistakes. And what I was taught, in one of my counseling things, was that, you know, you have to listen and you have to try to figure out what he or she is saying and then deal with the problem.
And so, like I say, yeah, it's a little vague, the question, but definitely there's going to be disagreements a lot of times. What we say, right from the onset, if there's something I'm doing that bothers you, tell me.
We don't want it to build up and vice versa. I remember I was I was talking to him, counseling him, and I asked him that question. He said, well, first of all, if you get rid of that gum in your mouth, that'll help.
So I said, oh, I'm sorry. Okay. You know, that was just one of the things that build up. So you can always get another opinion. You can, a lot of times you read above the counselor. If it's in the Bible, you read the Bible yourself.
You're a believer priest. You know the word. And if it's some other type of problem, you can get a second choice. In fact, if your psychiatrist says, I don't know anything anymore to do with you, I say fire him.
I mean, you know, a terrible thing, because there's many, many things that you could always do.
And there's great wisdom in having multiple counselors.
That's right, yeah. Yeah, all together, not just at the same time. I mean, not just everybody disagreeing, but you got to get together with it. Yeah, you can do that. That's what the church should do, also have some specialty.
Something like suicide is going to arise. And, you know, we had that. We also wrote a book called Broken Minds, Hope for Healing When You Feel Like You're Losing It. And that was published in 2005 with Kregel.
And a lot of that answers the question of what is right in mental illness, what isn't. You know, it takes the different views on it, the virtual warfare movement. Can you repeat that title? Yeah, it's Broken Minds, Hope for Healing When You Feel Like You're Losing It.
Okay, and you could also order any book that we mentioned on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio from cvbbs .com. That stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com. If they don't already have it, they can order it.
You said that was published by Kregel, correct?
Yeah, my wife Robin also wrote the book. We had a, you know, she's a dual though.
Oh, well, I've already got an idea that sometime in the near future, we should have you both on to address that book as well.
Definitely. Yeah, that'd be great.
All right. And by the way, Eve in France, if you have someone here in the United States who can receive this book on your behalf, so that he or she can ship this out to you, because cvbbs .com, our sponsors who ship out our winners, their free books, only ship out books and Bibles within the United States, because the shipping cost would be astronomical if we were shipping books out to our overseas listeners.
So let us know if there is someone here in the United States who can receive this book in your behalf and then get it to you themselves. And that goes for anybody listening who's overseas. We are only shipping these books to United States residents.
If you live overseas and you have a friend or a family member who lives in within the 50 states of the United States, who can get it to you, we'll ship it to them if you can provide their shipping address.
We're going to our elongated break right now. This is the time during Iron Trip and Zion Radio where we need to take a longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, uses this midway break to localize Iron Trip and Zion Radio to Florida by airing public service announcements and commercials that are relevant to that local area.
So please use this time wisely to write down questions for our guest Steve Blum on mental illness and also use this time to write down the information provided by our advertisers because the more frequently you patronize our advertisers, the more likely they are going to remain on the air as our advertisers, which means the more likely we are going to remain on the air because we depend on their advertising dollars to exist.
But that email address to send in a question for Steve Blum once again is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Steve Blum right after this station break.
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Again, their information can be found at www .ncc .nyc. Have a great day. Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
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Welcome back, and by the way, I goofed. That was not our midway break. That was our first break. Our midway break is going to be coming up in about 20 minutes or so. I apologize for the false alarm there, but the instructions that I gave still applied for you to write in questions and also write down the information that our advertisers provide.
By the way, if you just tuned in, our guest today is Steve Bloom, a counselor, author, and founder of Heartfelt Counseling Ministries, and we're discussing his book, The Pastoral Handbook of Mental Illness, a Guide for Training and Reference.
Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. If you have a question, c-h-r-i-s-a-r-n-z-e-n at gmail .com. Please, as always, give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence.
If you live outside the USA, please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. By the way, I forgot to mention to Eve in France that if you can find an American representative for yourself where we could ship your free book here in the United States, you have also, since you're a first-time questioner, you've also won a New American Standard Bible.
I forgot to mention that. We have another listener. We have Bruce in Center Reach, Long Island, New York. Are there any definitive indicators that a person in a demonized category of behavior as opposed to a physically based mental illness category or behavior?
Let me repeat that. Are there any indicators that place a person in a demonized category of behavior as opposed to a physically based mental illness category or behavior? Oh, yes. In fact, in the.
Book, Pastoral Handbook, we talk about that. We do a differential diagnosis, which is a medical term of comparing diseases, what they have in common, what they don't. And we do that with schizophrenia versus demonization.
And there's a definite difference. In my public practice, I worked with a team, and I was supposed to help figure out who should get served. One guy, I said to him, he said, I'm demon-possessed. And then he said a few more things.
I said, you're not mentally ill. I said, if you're demon-possessed, you have to be saved. He said, no, I can never do that. He said, I belong to a coven. A witch coven. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep. And so he just, you know, there's a definite difference, and we use the differential diagnosis in our appendices, and we talk about that quite a bit, because that's a very good question.
Yeah, I'm assuming that there are going to be circumstances when you are not a hundred percent sure that it's demonic. Right. Unless there are actually supernatural things accompanying the person's behavior.
Have you ever personally experienced someone that you were certain was demonically possessed where, and another question that I have to follow up would be, how close is Hollywood and the movie The Exorcist and things like that to that in regard to people speaking languages that they had never learned here on earth as a student of foreign languages?
You know, those are the sometimes the things that come up as the evidences of demonic possession in movies. I don't know how accurate those things are, if they're just a product of fantasy or so on, if you could.
Well, they're getting a lot more right on.
Depression. I don't deal with a lot of demon possession. I don't do, I have more people who.
Are accused of being. But have you ever experienced it though? I mean, I don't know if this person from the coven was actually demon possessed in your opinion, or if they were just.
Depressed. I think he was demon possessed, but. No, as far as what I asked though,.
Are any of the things that we see in Hollywood accurate, or is that just fantasy of people speaking languages they were never trained to speak, and that kind of thing? Oh, I mean,.
I think that could definitely be possible. I mean, you know, if somebody has immersed themselves, can be channeling, I think, you know, people do channeling, and so there's those. Well,.
Thank you, Bruce, and Center Reach Long Island, make sure we have your full mailing address so that CVBBS .com can ship you out a free copy of the book by our guest Steve Blum. The Pastoral Handbook of Mental Illness, a guide for training and reference.
We have a question from Mary in Cork, Ireland, and I also have to enlarge Mary's email because the font is microscopic. And while I do that, again, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N-G-M-A-I-L .com.
Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the USA. Can you please ask your guest, where in the Bible can one direct a person to who is struggling with mental illness?
Oh, yeah, there's a number of places you can go in the Bible to. Job is one that a lot of, I think he probably had elephant type, he meets the criteria in the DSM -5 of the psychiatric manual of actually, I think also you can see many people who may not have mental illness, but Jeremiah was one, he probably didn't have mental illness, but he had a tremendous amount of grief and sorrow in his life.
And he's good to read. He wrote Lamentations. Lamentations 3 is one of the most wonderful scriptures there is as far as feeling that God is away. If you read the Psalms, the Psalms, see what letters have been through.
I mean, one Psalm says, the spirit of a man sustains his sickness, but a wounded spirit, who can bear it? Proverbs 18 .14. There's other songs, somebody, you know, just speak words that are not...
Well, thank you very much for that excellent question, Mary. And we know that you have a relative here in the United States who can receive that book for you. So we will make sure that that individual gets that book and holds onto it for you for when you return to visit the United States.
Thank you so much for contributing a great question to our program. We have Joey. Go ahead.
I just wanted to make a quick comment. When we first got the book, and I was talking with the staff at Christian, they have... Okay, great.
Great, but obviously they would have to pay for it if they do that route, but they might want to buy after they get the free copy, they might want to buy copies to give to other friends and family. Yeah.
And I know that there is a Cork Christian bookstore in Cork, Ireland, so maybe they have it, or they...
I remember they had the book... Okay, we have Joey in Clifton, New Jersey.
Dear Steve, I am also involved in the field of counseling and can fully identify with your passion for this subject. It seems that because of secular unbiblical understand... Let's see, this is a different format of email.
I've got to scroll. Okay. It seems that because of secular unbiblical understandings of anthropology, as well as systematic problems in the medical field, there has been an increasing tendency to very quickly diagnose mental illness such as depression or bipolar disorder and immediately put them on psychotropic medications.
Once diagnosed and medicated, the diagnosis is sticky, so the person and subsequent psychiatrists and experts continue to view the person as having that illness and needing the medication. I have my own thoughts, but would really like to hear your personal view on the following.
How can we best be sensitive and supportive to get such needed help for those who genuinely need it while not making the mistake of misdiagnosing someone who has more of a behavioral or sin-related problem, locking them into that diagnosis and a wrong self-assessment of being mentally ill?
That's a good question. I know people also who have experienced horrific, terrifying, nightmarish consequences from taking prescription drugs that they did not need. And I, in fact, am planning to do a program on that very soon with the husband of one such person who may have permanent damage as a result of being wrongly prescribed certain psychotropic medications.
But if you could respond to Joey and Clifton. Once again, I mean the book, we really covered that because it was a great.
Question that you have to realize a medication that, you know, it can cause problems if you go too high. We do need to talk about that. You do, you can get, he's right about the stigma. If you get a diagnosis, a lot of times the people that see you, they'll have the right answer.
I would think maybe we'll intend that. Well, thanks so much Joey and Clifton, New Jersey. Make sure you get to us.
Your full mailing address in Clifton, New Jersey so that cvbbs .com can ship that book out to you once they get it in their hands. And thanks for providing such an excellent question. We have Linda in Hilltop Lakes, Texas.
And Linda says, we've heard several Christian teachers that say schizophrenia, bipolar, depression, and other mental illness are caused by demonic influences. What is your opinion? And what is your recommendation when a family member begins to show changes in behavior like paranoia, overwhelming sadness, anguish, and distress?
Thanks for your ministry regarding these matters.
Yeah, once again, in the past, I ended up, we discussed this at length because it's such an important, could you repeat the question, you know?
Sure. Let me go back to the question from Linda in Hilltop Lakes, Texas. We've heard several Christian teachers say that schizophrenia, bipolar, depression, and other mental illnesses are caused by demonic influences.
What is your opinion? And what is your recommendation when a family member begins to show changes in behavior like paranoia, overwhelming sadness, anguish, and distress? Why don't you take them one at a time as far as, we've already addressed this, but perhaps you could just add to what you've already said about the diagnosis of demonic possession.
Of course, there are many charismatic and Pentecostal movements that will very flippantly, if you will, or perhaps not flippantly, but just immediately draw that conclusion. And people may be scarred for life being branded and publicly viewed as one who has been, or is, demon possessed, when that's not at all true.
And we cannot help but think of some of the horrific things that have happened where parents have done horrible things in regard to their own children, in regard to exorcisms that have resulted in physical harm and death.
So this is a situation that has to be treated very, very carefully, obviously. Yeah, that's true. That's true. From the very.
Beginning, one of my clients who, during the day, one of my clients came into that room, and he had a lighter, and he said, hey, look at me, preacher. I'm going to burn myself. Well, my training was to immediately take the guy down, which I did.
And I got the lighter out of his hand. And I told these guys who came to help, the younger guys at the mission, I said, you got to call up the place that I work at. I gave them the number and everything.
You got to call them and tell them what happened. Well, I found that lighter, but they spent five hours trying to perform an exorcism. And to be honest with you, I didn't see him again. He didn't come again for treatment.
He was so misguided and not giving the right information that it was really bad. Very humbling. Some people get very humbled, and they need to realize that you will, you can, and will come out of this.
You can get the right treatment. You don't have a demon in you. That's possible, but it's rare. And science is realizing more and more of the brain and what.
Goes on. And of course, there is great value, I think of vital importance that one is a member of a biblically sound church. Not that biblically sound churches are infallible, but to have that guidance where all options are explored and where you're not making decisions on your own, where you're not going off to see some charlatan faith healer who's going to do more damage to you than before you entered through the doors of that false church or something.
But thank you, Linda. Thank you for the excellent question. Make sure we have your full mailing address in Hilltop Lakes, Texas, so you can receive a free copy of the book we are addressing. And that will be shipped out to you from cvbbs .com once they get a hold of it.
In fact, when we come back from the break, let's address part two of our question, which we really didn't fully address. Now we're going to the longer station break. So please be patient with us as we take this longer break.
Write down the information provided by our advertisers and write down questions for our guests at chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. And as always, please give us a first name, city and state and country of residence if you live outside the USA and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.
We'll be right back, God willing, right after these messages with Steve Blum. James White here, co-founder of Alvin Omega Ministries,.
An occasional guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. I'm so delighted that my friend Chris Arnson will be heading down to Atlanta for the next G3 conference from January 17th to the 19th, 2019. We'll all be joining a very impressive lineup of speakers on the theme, a biblical understanding of missions.
Speakers include John Piper, Steve Lawson, Vody Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, Phil Johnson, Josh Weiss, yours truly, and many more. I hope you all join Chris and me for this phenomenal event. For more details, go to g3conference .com.
That's g3conference .com.
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At Bethlehem Baptist Church in Laurel, Mississippi, and I'm hoping that many of you who listen to Chris Arnson's Iron Sharpens Iron radio program will join Chris and me at the Deep South Founders Conference Thursday, January 24th through Saturday, January 26th here in Laurel.
If you love God's Word and love to hear it powerfully preached, I can assure you that you will not be disappointed. Our speakers at the Deep South Founders Conference this year include Rusty Reed, Gerald Henderson, Jason Goodwin, Bobby Crenshaw, and our keynote speaker all the way from Zambia, Dr. Conrad Mbewe, who has received the nickname the Spurgeon of Africa, and I, for one, believe it's a very accurate description of Brother Conrad.
For more details, go to deepsouthfounders .com. That's deepsouthfounders .com. I look forward to giving a big Mississippi welcome to many Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners January 24th through January 26th.
Thank you.
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Batterydepot .com. That's batterydepot .com. Hi, I'm Stephan Lindblad, assistant professor of systematic theology at IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas. I accepted this call to teach at the seminary because I'm firmly convinced that the people of God in the churches of our Lord Jesus Christ need to be firmly grounded in the truth of Holy Scripture.
I'm excited to be teaching such subjects as the nature of theology and the doctrine of Scripture and even the doctrine of the person and work of Jesus Christ. Our churches and our people need to be well grounded in these truths.
Indeed, future ministers of the gospel need to understand these truths in order to proclaim them to all of God's people. If you want to learn more about our program, visit us online at irbsseminary .org.
Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
Consultations are free. There is no fee unless you win. Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878. 1 -800 -669 -4878. Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail .com. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com.
Again, their information can be found at www .ncc .nyc. Have a great day. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co-host with Chris Arnson on.
Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. I would like to introduce you to my good friends, Todd and Patty Jennings at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. Todd and Patty specialize in supplying Reformed and Puritan books and Bibles at discount prices that make them affordable to everyone.
Since 1987, the family-owned and operated book service has sought to bring you the best available Christian books and Bibles at the best possible prices. Unlike other book sites, they make no effort to provide every book that is available because, frankly, much of what is being printed is not worth your time.
That means you can get to the good stuff faster. It also means that you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic, heretical and otherwise faith insulting material promoted by the secular book vendors.
Their website is cvbbs .com. Browse the pages at ease, shop at your leisure and purchase with confidence as Todd and Patty work in service to you, the church and to Christ. That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service at cvbbs .com.
That's cvbbs .com. Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
And remember, you can also call cvbbs .com at their toll-free number Monday through Friday from 10 a .m. Eastern Time to 4 30 p .m. Eastern Time at 800 -656 -0231, 800 -656 -0231. Mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and you will receive free shipping on any order of $50 or more.
Also keep in mind that you can purchase gift certificates for Christmas straight up through New Year's Eve that will be emailed to you or to the loved one that you intend to purchase the gift for whom you intend to purchase the gift certificate.
So go to cvbbs .com or call 800 -656 -0231 Monday through Friday 10 a .m. Eastern Time before 30 p .m. Eastern Time. Of course, if you're ordering online, you can order 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Before we return to our guest Steve Blum, we just have some events that we want to make sure you are aware of that we hope that you attend, that I will be attending as well. In fact, this first event is an event that I myself have orchestrated and that is the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastors Luncheon.
This luncheon is a free event for all men in ministry leadership. Sorry, we're not including the ladies or the wives of pastors. This is just for men who are either pastors, elders, deacons, or leaders in parachurch ministry.
It's going to be held Thursday, January 3rd, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m., God willing, at the Carlisle Fire and Rescue Banquet Hall in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. This is being sponsored by BatteryDepot .com, LinbrookBaptist .org, and NASBible .com.
And this year, or this coming January 3rd, I should say, we are blessed to have once again returning as a guest speaker Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics in Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. He is going to be speaking on the profound theme, the meaninglessness of life and the destruction of Western society without God.
Every man who attends is not only going to be fed physically for free and spiritually for free, with a message from Dr. Tony Costa, but you're going to be leaving that place with sacks filled with brand new books that have been donated by most of the major Christian publishers in the United States and the United Kingdom.
They have been doing this every year. These publishers have been donating to Iron Trip and Zion Radio these books that I select personally every year going back to the 1990s when my dearly departed late wife, my precious late wife Julie, came up with the idea for the pastor's luncheons to begin with.
This is her brainchild and these pastor's luncheons that we hold subsequent to her going home to Christ for eternity are being conducted in her honor and tribute to her, my precious late wife Julie. If you would like to attend this free luncheon for men in ministry leadership, just send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c-h-r-i-s-a-r-n-z-e-n gmail .com and put luncheon in the subject line.
We will get you all the information that you need to attend. There is no hidden agenda, no ulterior motive, there's nothing for sale at all at the luncheon. It's all being done to bless men in the ministry with a fun time of rest and relaxation, fun and fellowship, great food, and a challenging message from God's Word by a very gifted speaker.
Those were the instructions of my late wife Julie and I've never departed from them. She never wanted any ulterior motive involved in these luncheons and no money making efforts to be involved. It's all absolutely free.
Chrisarnsen at gmail .com is the email address chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Put luncheon in the subject line. Then immediately following that from Friday January 4th through Sunday January 6th, Dr. Tony Costa is going to be speaking at a three-day Bible conference and that is going to be held at the Enola First Church of God in nearby Enola, Pennsylvania, where my friend George Jensen is the pastor.
Dr. Costa is going to be speaking on the theme, Contending for the Faith, the Church in a Post-Modern World. This, unlike the pastor's luncheon, is open to everybody, man, woman, and child, Christian or non-Christian.
You are welcome to attend and if you want more details on this conference, which once again is January 4th through the 6th, that's Friday through Sunday, you can call 717 -732 -4253. That's the phone number of the Enola First Church of God in Enola, Pennsylvania.
717 -732 -4253 or you can go to the website enolacog .com e-n-o-l-a-c-o-g .com forward slash Bible dash conference and you can get all the information that you need to attend that free conference.
Then coming up later in the month of January, I am going to be, God willing, for the third year in a row, manning an exhibitor's booth at the G3 Conference, which stands for Gospel, Grace, and Glory. That's being held at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.
They are expecting between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people to attend this conference. On the theme, The Mission of God, A Biblical Understanding of Missions. That's Thursday, January 17th, through Saturday, January 19th.
Also keep in mind, there is a special Spanish-speaking edition of the conference being held on Wednesday, January 16th. So tell your Spanish-speaking and bilingual friends about that Spanish-speaking edition.
But the English-speaking edition of the conference has a huge roster of speakers, as it always does. I mean, you will rarely find a list this long and this impressive of speakers at any conference. Dr. James R. White, John Piper, Stephen J. Lawson, Vody Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad M. Bayway, Tim Challies, Phil Johnson, Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Radio, Stephen J. Nichols, the president of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries, and many other are on this lineup.
If you'd like to register, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com. I strongly urge you, if you are a pastor of a church, a leader of a parachurch ministry, a business owner, or you're running a special event that you want advertised, I strongly urge you to ask about manning your own exhibitors booth.
I don't know how many spots they have available. Last week, they only had 10. So if you want to man your own exhibitors booth, I would do so quickly at g3conference .com, g3conference .com because of the fact that, as I said, they are expecting between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people to attend this.
So it's an excellent way to promote whatever it is that you want to promote, g3conference .com. And then, even further towards the end of the month, I will be attending for the very first time the Deep South Founders Conference, God willing.
This is being held at the Bethlehem Baptist Church in Laurel, Mississippi. This will be my first time ever visiting the state of Mississippi, and I'm eagerly looking forward to that. It's on the theme of sanctification, and the speakers include Rusty Reed, Gerald Henderson, Jason Goodwin.
In fact, Jason Goodwin is my guest on Iron Shepherds Iron this Wednesday, God willing, and Bobby Crenshaw. And the keynote speaker is Dr. Conrad Mbewe, pastor of Kabwatha Baptist Church, Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, and chancellor of African Christian University.
I think he is the most powerful preacher alive on the planet Earth today. If you want to register for the Deep South Founders Conference, go to deepsouthfounders .com. Deepsouthfounders .com. Last but not least, if you love Iron Shepherds Iron radio, and you don't want the show to disappear from the airwaves, I have an urgent plea for you to donate like you've never donated before as we enter into what look like they may be very scary times financially for us again.
If you love the program, you benefit from the guests and the topics you every day. Sometimes we have guests and topics that are never heard anywhere else. If you love sharing the MP3s, the free MP3s with family, friends, and loved ones, then please go to ironshepherdsironradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now and donate as heavily as you can and as frequently as you can to help us remain on the air.
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Also, never put your family in financial jeopardy by giving to Iron Shepherds Iron radio. Those two things are commands of God providing for church and home and providing for Iron Shepherds Iron radio is obviously not a command of God, but if you're financially blessed above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, please consider donating to Iron Shepherds Iron radio.
Ironshepherdsironradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now. If you want to advertise with us, send us an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line and as long as whatever it is you are promoting is compatible with what we believe, you don't have to believe identically with me to advertise, but you need to be promoting something that's compatible with what I believe, then send it to chrisarnson at gmail .com and we will help you launch an ad campaign immediately because we certainly do need your advertising dollars to remain on the air.
That's also the email address where you could send in a question to our guest today, Steve Bloom on mental illness. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com and as you know, Steve, before the break we had a question, we had two questions from our guest Linda in Hilltop Lake, Texas and we addressed one of those and I don't think that we really adequately addressed her second question.
What is your recommendation when a family member begins to show changes in behavior like paranoia, overwhelming sadness, anguish and distress?
Yeah, I think at that point, if it's been for more than two weeks, that it'd be good to go to a untreated, but even more so to try to get lined up with a psychiatrist and I think that would be important and especially if they're having the paranoia words or loss of energy.
All this should somehow set these things out.
Well, the hearing of voices is an extremely huge factor in the mix as to whether or not it's involving a mental illness because obviously those other things can be demonstrated by people who might be on the verge of losing a job, their marriage is in trouble, they might be paranoid that their spouse is cheating on them and there's a basis for it.
Isn't a lot of this, whether or not this is a mental health issue involving whether there is a logical reason for those things to be manifested in the life of that person because if there is a plausible explanation for them to have those things as opposed to them coming out of thin air for no apparent reason, that could be the difference between night and day, right?
Yeah, that could be. As I said before, you have to do what is this and what is that. Paranoia, if it's to an extreme, if it's actually people are saying, I know the FBI is following me or I know that they have paranoia about, people have paranoia about whether or not they're going to die of the illness.
And so I think that's what, you know, we had the DSM -5. Some people don't like that, but the DSM -5 is pretty thorough because you can look up these things and then you can see differentials in which are.
So, but yeah, as far as paranoia, hearing voices, yeah, I mean, that's, you know, that's a hallmark. Anything more than that?
No, I think that's sufficient. And thank you very much, Linda, and make sure we have your full mailing address in Hilltop Lake, Texas. We have a question from Lucas in Cologne, Germany. Deutscher, the fatherland.
His first question is, I heard that you do not like German people. I don't know how you got that idea. I love, I love the fatherland. The question for you, Steve, is how do you, categorize the mental illness or how do you measure the degrees of an illness?
I guess there are obviously, I don't guess, there certainly are degrees of severity.
Yeah, usually you have to, you have to meet five or more. If you know about bipolar, if you know about schizophrenia, and usually you have to go through that and you have to, you know, see which symptoms are said to, you know, cause you to have, actually cause you to have a difficulty in your job, or in your social life, or in your love life.
These can be signs, and a hallmark sign of mental illness is that it affects persons greatly in that area, you know, and it becomes just a long time having it.
Well, Lucas, also this, as I've been repeating, this goes for you as well. If you have a family or friend, family member or friend in the United States who can receive this book on your behalf, we will ship that to that individual free of charge because of your question that you submitted today.
As I said earlier, we don't have CVVVS .com ship books overseas or outside the boundaries of the United States because the shipping costs are astronomical outside of the 50 states of the United States.
So let us know if you have that individual here in the States that can receive the book on your behalf. Thank you. Oh, and you'll also receive, being a first-time questioner, you'll receive a free New American Standard Bible if you can locate somebody here in America or the United States to receive that book.
And let's see here, we have a listener right here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Simon. And I have to enlarge Simon's question because of the tiny font. And once again, while I'm doing that, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.
If you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, chrisarnson at gmail .com. And Simon's question is, what principles do you use to determine, let's see, I got to enlarge this. What principles do you use to determine a person's behavior is the result of their sin or mental health?
Well, mental health, is there anything about the Savior, that much of a problem there?
No, I think what Simon's asking is, like for instance, sometimes, like I'll give you an example. A person might be suffering from ongoing, unrelenting depression. And it might be because that person is a Christian who is having his or her conscience graved because they're unrepentant in some kind of sin.
They have a private sin that's unconfessed and unrepented of. You know, it might be that kind of a thing, other than some mental illness problem. And I would probably think that that would be what is going on the majority of times, not always, but it's probably, I mean, we are in a fallen world, and every person, no matter how sanctified and godly they are, they have sin in their lives.
So, yeah, if you could.
Well, yeah, exactly. And, you know, there is such a thing as, like Job, he had an attack from the devil directly, and he also attacked through his friends. And a lot of times, depression is quite prevalent in grief.
Or, like you said, it might be because they have a sin. In a book, we quote Charles Spurgeon on, you know, what are the, I think it's 30 reasons for desertion, what do you call it? Parent desertion. And so that's really good to look at, too, because, I mean, there are things that, yeah, happen to you, are not mental illness, they're, you know, if you're not saved, you may be very depressed.
And there are other things, of course, that can come in, like you say, spiritually. So you have to be very aware. You could have Heman the Ezra, like Psalm, I think it is, what, 88? We have that in our book, but it's a part of the, he talks in Psalm 88 about how horrible he has it.
Now, he may have had a mental illness or not, but there, you've got people like Elijah, who didn't have a full-blown mental illness, but he certainly had things that he had to be corrected about, as far as his ministry.
Well, thank you, Simon. And please keep checking with CVBBS .com, right here in Carlisle,.
Pennsylvania, on North Hanover Street, to see when they receive the books that we are giving away, since you live in Carlisle, you could pick up there, rather than have CVBBS spend the money to ship it to you.
So keep checking up with them, and their toll-free number, to find out when they receive the books. We are going now to our final break. It's going to be much more brief than the previous break. If you have questions to ask of our guest, Steve Bloom, please do so now, because we're rapidly running out of time.
And the email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, at least, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside the USA.
And please only remain anonymous, if your question involves a personal and private matter. In fact, I'm going to read a question for you. It's an anonymous question, Steve. This is from someone outside of the United States.
It's interesting, we have the United Nations listening to Iron Shepard's Iron Radio today. But this is somebody outside of the United States who wants to remain anonymous. And this person asks, what would Steve say is the proper order of steps to take to diagnose someone?
My wife seems to struggle with anxiety at times, but we aren't really sure what is best to do. In many, it may be our kids are a little terrorist, causing stress, or outside family problems taking its toll.
But maybe it is actually a problem. I mean, perhaps he means a mental health problem. Kind of seems like it spikes at times, and then is good for a while. Okay, we'll have you address that question when we return from our final break.
And once again, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence, if you live outside the USA.
Only remain anonymous, if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away, we'll be right back after these messages,.
God willing. Got to tell you, for my money, Chris Arnson's radio program is just the best. Iron. Criticizing. Iron. I think that's what it's called. This is Todd Friel of Wretched Radio and TV, with Phil Johnson of Grace to You, inviting everybody to come to the G3 conference, which has almost instantly become one of the best conferences in the country.
And it is. It's a great conference.
I love it. And Chris Arnson was there last year. He's been there, I think, every year. It's great to see him there. You and I actually did some recordings in the lobby at that place,.
Which is a highlight. Tons of stuff going on. Tons of great speakers. And no matter where you are in the building, you will hear Chris Arnson's laugh. And that's worth the price of admission alone. If you would like to join Phil, me, Chris, and a cavalcade of great preachers, so it should be a cavalcade of great preachers, and me, g3conference .com, g3conference .com.
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Hello, my name is James Renahan, and I'm the president of IRVS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas. The Word of God says, if a man desires the office of an overseer, he desires a good thing. Do you have the desire to serve Jesus Christ in pastoral ministry?
Twenty years ago, the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies at Westminster Seminary, California, was born. For those two decades, these institutions worked together to train men for ministry in Reformed Baptist churches.
It has been a wonderful partnership. Now, we have advanced our school into an independent seminary, offering a full program of courses leading to the Master of Divinity degree. This is IRVS Theological Seminary.
We believe that the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the inspired and inerrant Word of God, that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh who came to save sinners by his life, death, and resurrection, and that the task of the church is to honor and serve the triune God in all things.
IRVS Theological Seminary is dedicated by God's grace to preparing godly ministers who will be committed to these doctrines. Do you sense a call to serve Jesus Christ in his church as a pastor? Why not consider IRVS Theological Seminary?
You'll find more information at IRVSseminary .org. That's IRVSseminary .org, two S's in the middle. I hope to hear from you soon.
God bless you. Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church. We are a Reformed Baptist church, and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts. We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things.
That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the apostles' priority, it must not be ours either. We believe, by God's grace, that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man, and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.
If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts, or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship. You can call us at 508 -528 -5750, that's 508 -528 -5750, or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our TV program entitled Resting in Grace.
You can find us at providencebaptistchurchma .org, that's providencebaptistchurchma .org, or even on sermonaudio .com. Providence Baptist Church is delighted to sponsor Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
I'm Dr. Gary Kimbrough, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Laurel, Mississippi. God tells us in James 127 that pure and undefiled religion is a visit to fatherless and widows and their affliction. In the providence of God three years ago, I discovered a poor small church outside Lusaka, Zambia, in a township called Kabanana, who are taking care of 24 orphans.
I found them just at the time when they had lost all their funding. What was I to do? Could I just say God bless you and walk away? The situation of the children set heavily upon me. As I was praying concerning this need, it came to me, I trust from the Lord, to tell the orphans' plight to a broader audience.
The entire need for their clothing, food, education, and some medical services is $73 per month per child. If just 50 of us would give $35 a month, we could meet the need. Bethlehem Baptist Church will pay the fee to get the funds there, so if you give a dollar, a dollar will get to the orphans.
In this season of hope and giving, will you consider giving hope to 24 orphans? Please send your gift of any amount to Bethlehem Baptist Church, 838 Reed Road, Laurel, Mississippi 39443, or donate through our website bbclaurel .com.
Again, the address is Bethlehem Baptist Church, 838 Reed Road, Laurel, Mississippi 39443, or bbclaurel .com. Thank you.
Every day at thousands of community centers, high schools, middle schools, juvenile institutions, coffee shops, and local hangouts, Long Island Youth for Christ staff and volunteers meet with young people who need Jesus.
We are rural and urban, and we are always about the message of Jesus. Our mission is to have a noticeable spiritual impact on Long Island, New York by engaging young people in the lifelong journey of following Christ.
Long Island Youth for Christ has been a stalwart bedrock ministry since 1959. We have a world-class staff and a proven track record of bringing consistent love and encouragement to youths in need all over the country and around the world.
Help honor our history by becoming a part of our future. Volunteer, donate, pray, or all of the above. For details, call Long Island Youth for Christ at 631 -385 -8333. That's 631 -385 -8333. Or visit liyfc .org.
That's liyfc .org.
Lynbrook Baptist Church on 225 Earl Avenue in Lynbrook, Long Island is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century. Our church is far more than a Sunday worship service.
It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant. It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement. It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people in healing.
We're a diverse family of all ages enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ in fellowship, play, and together. Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman, and I invite you to come and join us here at Lynbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.
Call Lynbrook Baptist at.
516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402. Or visit lynbrookbaptist .org. That's lynbrookbaptist .org.
James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know I have a great love for getting Bibles and other documents vital to my ministry rebound to preserve and ensure their longevity.
And besides that, they feel so good. I'm so delighted I discovered Post-Tenebrous Lux Bible rebinding. No radio ad will be long enough to sing their praises sufficiently, but I'll give it a shot. Jeffrey Rice of Post-Tenebrous Lux is a remarkably gifted craftsman and artisan.
All his work is done by hand from the cutting to the pleating of corners to the perimeter stitching. Jeffrey uses the finest and buttery soft imported leathers in a wide variety of gorgeous colors like the turquoise goatskin tanned in Italy used for my Nessie Olin 28th edition with a navy blue goatskin inside liner and the electric blue goatskin from a French tannery used to rebind a Reformation study Bible I used as a gift.
The silver gilding he added on the page edges has a stunning mirror finish resembling highly polished chrome. Jeffrey will customize your rebinding to your specifications and even emboss your logo into the leather, making whatever he rebinds a one-of-a-kind work of art.
For more details on Post-Tenebrous Lux Bible rebinding, go to ptlbiblerebinding .com. That's.
Ptlbiblerebinding .com. Listening to Christian radio can be a big gamble spiritually. Even many of the major Christian networks that include excellent biblically faithful teachers on their lineup sadly often also include the worst of doctrinally dangerous heretics.
If you are a lover of the doctrines of sovereign grace, you need not fear listening 24 hours a day to firstloveradio .org. They feature Christ-centered programming from Reformed pastors and teachers you can rely upon for theological soundness and biblical faithfulness, such as Dr. W .R. Downing, Dr. Peter Masters, Pastor Joe Jakowicz, Pastor Robert Gifford, Al Martin, Edward Dalcor, and more.
Firstloveradio .org also live streams my Iron Trepans Iron Radio program daily. Please stick around on firstloveradio .org after Iron Trepans Iron Radio is over to continue being blessed by the unwavering proclamation of the gospel of sovereign grace.
Spread the word about firstloveradio .org.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own.
You need to read. Solid Ground Christian Books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the Prince of Preachers to heart. The mission of Solid Ground Christian Books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and future and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.
Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And please help Solid Ground Christian.
Books dig their way out of the financial setback that they experienced after the founder, Mike Gadosh, went into emergency surgery to correct a very serious heart defect. During that time, being laid up in the hospital in recovery, they experienced a very serious financial setback at Solid Ground Christian Books.
So please help them replenish that which was lost by doing most, if not all, of your Christmas shopping while there is still time at solid-ground-books .com, solid-ground-books .com. And remember, you can also order titles published by Solid Ground Christian Books from cvbbs .com, our other sponsor, because cvbbs .com is a book distributor, not a publisher, and they carry all of Solid Ground Christian Books titles.
So if you want to make it to the $50 mark required for your free shipping, if you want to make that mark faster, make a long list of books that you want at solid-ground-books .com and then go to cvbbs .com and order them.
That way you can help both of our sponsors at the same time. We are now back with our guest, Steve Blum, and this is the final 15 minutes of our interview today. And if you would like to join us on the air with a question, do so now or forever hold your peace because we're rapidly running out of time.
We are discussing mental illness, specifically his book, The Pastoral Handbook of Mental Illness, and our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name, city and state and country of residence if you live outside the USA.
Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. And that is the case with this anonymous guest, I'm sorry, anonymous listener from outside of the United States who says, what would Steve say is the proper order of steps to take to diagnose someone my wife seems to struggle with anxiety at times but we aren't really sure what is best to do and maybe just our kids are little terrors causing stress or outside family problems taking its toll but maybe it is actually a problem and I am assuming I'm inserting here a mental health problem uh kind of seems like it spikes at times and then is good for a while.
So, Steve, you have any answers for our anonymous listener? Well, yeah, I think first of all,.
There's a difference between clinical anxiety at the same time. There's all different uh they call it OCD has things like separation anxiety that might be a somebody doesn't want to be behind somebody's behind uh a person that would you know be afraid of um they might think of their kids are going to be taken instead of just being a terrorism.
I've had that also the anxiety that comes from it. Um but who can dry assist the people have the as part of the anxiety disorder is that you know hypochondriasis is where you uh you think something's wrong with you.
I recently had a woman that I counseled she was convinced absolutely that she had Lou Gehrig syndrome and in fact she had gone to a place or she had gone online I should say and uh she just she would ask me over and over again um do you think I have uh Lou Gehrig syndrome.
And I said no I don't do you think I know. And finally um I told her look you've got to get on an antidepressant go to your doctor and he put her on an effect source and that problem was gone away. So the the severe you can see more but they're such thing as generalized anxiety which women tend to have more than men.
Um and anxiety disorders a lot of times need some behavioral uh treatment uh they may be afraid that uh they have panic attacks they're afraid to go and uh and you have to deal with that not only with medications but also ease them out bit by bit you know desensitize them like put some snakes put them around them but don't let them get them.
And you know gradually do that so but yeah that's why we're looking. I'm assuming I'm assuming you do that with non-poisonous snakes. Yeah yeah I don't believe in that. You're not a snake killer that's what.
Well well uh thank you to our anonymous uh listener and um sorry we don't have any books left for you but uh uh perhaps you can uh go to cvbbs .com and order the book if you'd like to receive that. Um I also want to give a plug to an interview I did with my former pastor Mark Grimaldi.
G-r-i-m as in Mary a-l-d as in David I. Grimaldi and Mark is spelt with a c-m-a-r-c if you go to ironsharpensironradio .com and you click on past shows podcast and you type in Grimaldi in the search engine g-r-i-m as in Michael a-l-d as in David I.
Uh one of the interviews that I conducted with Mark was regarding his book that he wrote uh which is involving his own struggle with OCD. Uh since my guest mentioned OCD I've just figured I'd throw that out there and it might be a fascinating interview for you to hear.
And you could also order the book uh and find out more about how pastor Grimaldi overcame that issue. I also want to just say for the record that uh uh I personally think people have to be very very cautious about using medications and only use that as a last result after you've heard a multiple heard from multiple counselors on the issue because I've seen and heard from too many people whose lives were negatively and tragically affected by medications improperly prescribed.
I could say that it's interesting. I have a I have battled depression for quite a long time but the depression isn't uh based on some mystery that comes out of nowhere. I mean a lot of it has to do with grieving the loss of my wife right and and and it I am I understand my my well-meaning friends but it actually also disturbs me a little bit uh that immediately when I mentioned to Christian friends that I'm depressed have you got a prescription.
I mean that's like the immediate thing that comes out of their mouth right and I know how I have to be very careful and Christians have to be very careful these days not to um act as if they are pharmaceutical authorities and tell people never on under any circumstances get a prescription because you might wind up leading to that person's death that you're talking to right you might even wind up leading to their death by suggesting a prescription so it's a it's a very tricky area isn't it in this day and.
Age especially. Yes it is. Yeah and that's why I go back to Lloyd-Jones who taught me a lot. You don't have the pastoral remedy you know. You don't the patent remedy you just don't. Why don't you get on meds.
Oh you got ADHD. Let's put them on meds. Oh you know you have to get the whole picture and and that's what we like about the book is that we really had that opportunity and people's wanted us to do it to put it down on paper and the pastoral counselors to have awareness of that.
So we don't have those kind of problems on both sides. Yeah in fact the.
Martin Lloyd-Jones uh I can't remember right now if you mentioned it but he wrote the classic work.
On spiritual depression. Yes yeah that's that is a that is a very good non-biological um book. One of the best ever written is spiritual depression. It's causes and secures and and uh dr martin.
Lloyd-jones was actually an md. He was a physician. He was a uh physician. Yes in fact later on with.
Lloyd-jones um some people uh tried to say that you know he didn't really believe in biological depression but uh if you look at one of his oldest um healing and medicine and he talks and he actually says um in there you know you got to watch out for people mental illness and you don't.
You don't treat that. So here's a guy a tremendous pastoral in teaching that but also.
Seeing as an md yeah that would do. Well i want you now to summarize uh what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners regarding this subject and regarding your book before we go off the air.
Uh you mean what do i want them to. I want you to have like three minutes of time uninterrupted where you just summarize what you most want our listeners to remember today.
Okay yeah i want you to remember that um god loves you unconditionally no matter what and that jesus christ died for your sins. Jesus himself was actually depressed in the garden of gethsemane. We talked about that in broken minds uh where he was in uh horror of uh of what might what was going to befall him and uh the lord brought him through that and he'll never desert anyone who knows christ because christ has already been deserted from them.
So i would ask this number two is there's help. You don't have to do it alone. Um our book helps direct to various places but it's good to have a local person like you and uh and have more pastors and you know i can.
I'm a example of i had biological depression i was horribly suicidal. My sister committed suicide at age 53. Wow um she'd left behind three kids and a husband and she had bipolar disorder so runs in my family.
But i read somewhere when i was depressed don't commit suicide because it's for your children. Uh it might and so yeah it could be spiritually you know but but you have to just really and i i mean i i couldn't feel better and so i was months and months without being fully treated for my mental illness which was as so i'm not out to try to uh you know tell other people that this is the way it has to be done.
But depression mental illnesses are neurodegenerative so if you miss them uh it can be. If you miss them yeah it can actually might get worse and refer to it um my wife and i went through all of that and it really comes out of our experience and also my training in the area of well i also want to make sure our listeners know that.
Your website.
Is heartfeltmin .org heartfeltmin that's heartfeltmin .org and that is the website for heartfelt counseling ministries and you could get in touch with steve bloom at that website. You could also order his book from cvbbs .com our sponsors cvbbs .com standing for cumberland valley bible book service.
If they don't have it in stock they will order it for you. I want to thank you uh brother steve for being our guest today. I want to thank everybody who listened especially those who took the time to write in questions.
I want to want everybody to tune in tomorrow as our guest will be jack wilkie discussing his book failure what christian parents need to know about american education. And i hope all of you always remember for the rest of your lives that jesus christ is a far far greater savior than you are a sinner.
God bless amen.