Mental Illness (Part 1) (rerun)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, "...but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you."

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Well, I'm glad to have that introduction.

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That is true. My name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. If you'd like to write us and ask us a question, give us a critique, some have emailed and said what

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I've told people on the air is not true, and my response is always the same. If I've said something that's not true, email me with the correction, and I'll be glad to tell people on the air that I've made a correction and that I was wrong.

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I think most of the time it's just people don't like the way things are said. Sometimes I intentionally ratchet it up a little bit to try to stir you, to try to get after you, to try to goad you into some action.

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We live in a lethargic, at least a mentally lethargic time, and so therefore

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I try to push and provoke and prod, and that's just the way things go.

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I think if you met me, you'd probably think I was a really nice guy. I try to tell people after the sermons as I'm greeting them on the way out of the church,

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I'm nicer in person. There's a way to preach, there's a way to teach, and there's a way to live life, and so that's just what we do here at No Compromise Radio Ministry.

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Today I'd like to talk a little bit about mental illness. What does the Bible say about mental illness?

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What do the scriptures address when it comes to this idea that the mind can have an illness?

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And so we'll talk about this today. If you're listening and you have a mental illness, at least what you think is a mental illness,

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I'm glad you're listening today, and we can even disagree and still be friends, be in the Church of Christ. There are differing views on these kind of things.

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But when it comes to what I believe, I'm going to try to convince you what I believe the scripture teaches so that you will know, so you will be informed.

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We live in a society where kids now go to school, and they have recess, they have math time, they have social interaction time, they have sharing time, you know, everything except arithmetic, you know, math and reading,

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I guess math and reading are the same thing, reading, writing, arithmetic. And then they have meds time, you know, let's see, go have your medicine.

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And so we live in a culture where psychotherapy, psychologist, psychotropic drugs drive a lot of behavior.

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They drive a lot of thinking, are prescribed. You can get drugs fairly quickly. So my question today is not, should you immediately stop taking all the drugs you're on?

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I don't want you to do that. I don't have the authorization as a medical doctor to tell you that. You ought to work with your medical doctor, and even at the very beginning, the disclaimer is if you're on drugs and you're a

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Christian, that is to say medical drugs, psychotropic drugs, I can't tell you to stop, but I can try to get it into your brain that you can ask your physician, do

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I have to be on this the rest of my life? Do I have to keep taking all this medicine? Could you help me get off this medicine?

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Could I be weaned off the medicine? There's a variety of things you can do. So for the Christian, I want today to talk about mental illness.

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Now I don't know if this is in good taste or bad taste. If you have to ask the question, you probably know the answer.

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I was reading about a psychiatric hotline the other day, and you have to use these numbers when you call.

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If you're obsessive compulsive, please press one repeatedly. I should probably do this show on Tuesday where it's

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Comedy Central with Steve. If you are codependent, please ask someone to press two for you.

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If you have multiple personalities, please press three, four, five, and six. If you are paranoid delusional, we know who you are and what you want.

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We are tracing your call. If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.

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If you are manic depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press. No one will answer. If you are delusional and occasionally hallucinate, please be advised that the thing you are holding up to the side of your head is alive and it is about to bite off your ear.

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I guess that is funny. I don't know why I'm laughing. I'm sitting here alone in my office in my study.

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We will today think a little bit about recovery and mental illness, and it is a big issue.

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You don't even have to go very far. Pop culture using the words addiction and recovery, even in secular rock music, addicted to love.

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In Christian music, Carmen had a song quite a while ago, actually an album I believe, Addicted to Jesus.

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Hallmark, actually the card company, used to have a recovery line, 51 different recovery cards, recovery bookmarks, recovery buttons, notice how

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I said that? This is New England. I did not say buttons. Recovery buttons, key chains, recovery framed prints, recovery mugs, recovery journals, recovery magnets.

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I guess there is money to be made. Recovery T -shirts and even recovery self -stick notes.

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Back in this study, Hallmark said 15 million Americans now attend weekly support groups for chemical addictions and other problems.

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We have lots of help groups. We have lots of recovery groups, lots of AA kind of groups and hybrid groups.

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We have a lot of anonymous groups. These are true, by the way, according to Ron Rhoad's article, overeaters anonymous, sex addicts anonymous, gamblers anonymous, spenders anonymous, debtors anonymous, fundamentalist anonymous.

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I probably would fit into that one, but I don't know why I want to be anonymous. Parents anonymous, workaholics anonymous,

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I had another one I just skipped, I didn't think it was appropriate to read, shoplifters anonymous, pills anonymous, emotions anonymous.

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Well, that's a good one, emotions anonymous, allegedly. They actually have other diseases.

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This is a true one, Messy's anonymous, and so if you, I think they've got that show on A &E

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TV now, hoarders. Have you ever seen hoarders, people hoarding all kinds of stuff and messy people? It's always on the dredge report, some lady with 1900 cats in her house or 1400 dogs running around, they have to go in and for the sake of the dogs, basically, evacuate the house.

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If you've got messy housekeeping, I guess that's a disease. Kleptomaniacs anonymous, and so if you steal something, that's just a disease.

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I think many of you probably have this one, compulsive shoppers anonymous, and so as you consume things, you have a problem, and that problem is certainly not anything that you have to own up to.

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It's a disease, and I think you might need to be psychoengineered.

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That's what the terminology, psychoengineering, that reminds me of an old Ramone song, psychotherapy.

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Here it's psychoengineering, or if you'd like to have a little bit more refined kind of term, psychocosmetology, psychocosmetology.

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That's pretty interesting. I'd like to have a little true and false quiz. I think I've talked about mental illness on the show before a little bit, but it's in the news and it's in my mind and it's in my church, it's in my congregation.

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I don't mean my church, capital M, I'm a nobody, I'm just an under shepherd, but the church that I attend and I'm a fellowship member of, is that a fellowship member of?

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We've got a true and false questionnaire today to make you think about this. And at the end of the day, if you still think the way you think, you still think the way you think.

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But I think it's important enough to talk about it at a radio show as we discuss these issues.

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And I don't think you'd hear about it in any place else. One of the reasons I like WV &E and Manny and Dave and the rest of the staff and crew and owners is that short of sin, short of some kind of grunge swearing in kind of emergent church -like thing, what they have given me is a very, very long rope to hang myself.

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I can talk about anything and everything as long as I do it in a way that is consistent with the

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Christian worldview and that it's done in the right way. And what I mean right way is, I'm not trying to call people names,

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I'm not trying to say if you disagree with me, you're a loser. I am trying to say this is what truth is and this is what error is, but I commend

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WV &E because I'm sure there were many stations, there are many stations across this country that I would never be able to talk about these things because it might hurt the constituency.

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I'm not trying to hurt the constituency. I'm not trying to go against WV &E and get less people to listen.

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But I want people to learn the lesson. Everywhere you look, the psychology shows on Christian radio are pushing something and there's not the other voice.

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Talk about fairness act. You rarely hear someone that will stand up and say, are you sure that the mind is different than the brain and that you can have mental illness?

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Is mental illness a myth? Is it true? What does the Bible say?

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And even again, at the end of the day, if you disagree with me, that's okay. But maybe you've never really considered anything else.

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And if you think the rest of your life you have to be on a lot of different medicine and that's the way you'll have to cope until the very, very end of your life and there'll be a final release when you die, then

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I want to give you some hope. That's what you do with biblical counseling. That's what J. Adams would tell people. If you do things

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God's way, then there is hope for you. Isn't that good to have hope, to have faith?

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And so that's what I'm after. I'm not after you to throw away all your pills today. I'm not after you to quit everything in your life.

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I'm after your mind today to get you to think biblically. Is Abendroth off the deep end or should

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I consider these things and study more for myself? True or false number one, the topic of mental illness is a very controversial subject.

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Well I've already tipped my hand to that and it is a very controversial subject.

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Gowan says every doctor and every parent knows the truth of the old adage, sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

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Sometimes one must cause temporary pain for the long -term benefit of the patient or child.

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Love does not merely flatter, it speaks the truth. What I'm about to say may be painful at first,

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Gowan says, but it's the truth. It will always be a battle. It's hard to live a godly life in an ungodly world.

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It's hard to resist what comes naturally and to follow Jesus Christ. Someone once said,

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Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, but has been found difficult and left untried.

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End quote. Gowan. Well that is exactly true. We want to tell you the truth.

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I remember the time that I first had to take a little sliver out of my daughter's hand,

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Haley, my firstborn, and she was too young to understand that the needle that I was going to put into her little soft hand, soft, uncalloused, kind of peachy hand, was going to hurt her but help her.

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She only began to feel the hurt and she gave me the look like, Dad, why would you hurt me? Of course as kids get older you tell them you're going to get a shot, it's for your own good, you're going to have this needle that's going to go in your hand to get the sliver out, it's got to come out, and they understand that.

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Well, I think maybe sometimes new Christians, young Christians, immature Christians, it's not always wrong to be immature.

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If you should be mature and you're immature, that's wrong. But if you're a new Christian and you're immature, you don't know the difference.

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And you think, why would someone try to do that? I've just got my meds stabilized, I'm a functioning member of society, and why would he try to upset the apple cart?

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Well, I think that I want to try to give you hope. And I want to try to, of course, bear with you if you're a weaker brother.

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My point is not just to please myself as Romans 15 would talk about, we want to please our neighbor for his good to his edification.

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But that's the point, for your edification. I just don't want to flatter you and say, oh, that's good. When people come into my study and say they're on psychotropic medicine,

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I just don't say, oh, that's nice. I tell them, this is what we think here at the church about mental illness and medication.

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And let us try to tell you that you are certainly welcome to come to this church and be on all kinds of drugs.

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But if you'd like to talk about the cure, I don't think the cure is going to be found in atheistic psychology or medicine.

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If you have a thyroid problem and you need to take thyroid medicine or a proven organic issue, you've got a brain tumor and it's affecting the way you act, that is something completely different.

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What I'm after today in this controversial subject is that you search the Scriptures and come to a conclusion in love.

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And even if you disagree with me, you still ought to love me. And even if I disagree with you, we with one accord ought to glorify

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God and Christ Jesus. God the Father and the Lord Christ Jesus.

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And we in Romans 15, 7 are told that we are to accept one another just as Christ also has accepted us to the glory of God.

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You don't have some churches where, you know, you can't show up if you've got this particular sin problem or this particular problem.

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No, everybody's welcome in the house of the Lord. If you are a sinner saved by grace, you can be a member, be baptized and become a member of the local church.

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Just because it's controversial, it doesn't mean that we cannot touch it. So Mike Avendroth here,

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No Compromise Radio, WVNE 760. And today we're talking about mental illness with a little true or false quiz.

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One, it's controversial. Two, mental problems are real and extremely difficult.

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Mental problems are real and extremely difficult. And the answer to that is true.

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I'm not saying people don't have problems. I'm not saying things aren't real. I'm not saying people don't battle, they don't fight.

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I'm not trying to say that this is some kind of Christian science world where sin really doesn't exist and Satan doesn't really exist or anything else like that.

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We live in a fallen, sin -cursed world and problems are real.

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And we all have tendencies and bents due to the fall and therefore we struggle with certain things.

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Some people struggle immensely with anxiety. I'm not saying it's not true.

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I believe it is true. And we are weak and fragile people and we all struggle with something.

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Each one, James 1 .14 says, is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.

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And so we are different than other people. Each one of us is different rather and so one person struggles with anxiety, the other one struggles with legalism, the other one struggles with depression.

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I'm not saying it isn't true. It is true. But difficult is not an excuse to quit.

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Proverbs 24 .16, for a righteous man falls seven times and rises again.

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Depression is real. Anxiety is real. These emotions are real. But we aren't going to just give up.

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Unrighteous people may give up. And by the way, if you're an unbeliever today, I'm not after you at all because your problems are not these things.

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Your problem is God is your enemy and you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, one as enemy.

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And the holy, just wrath of God is going to be poured out on you for all eternity. Everything that you own, all that you are, is going to be gone because it is appointed for man once to die and then the judgment.

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Death isn't the judgment. There's a judgment after you die. It's appointed for man once to die and then the judgment.

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And you will face the judgment of God, the holy, just, omniscient judgment of God.

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And I want you not to have to go through that. I want you to look away from yourself by the instrument of faith, looking to Christ Jesus and take

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God at His word. That's really what faith is, to take God at His word, that you're a sinner, that you can't save yourself, that Jesus is the provision for all those to look to Him, the risen

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Savior who died in the place of sinners, and that if you repent and believe, you surely will be saved.

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And that's what the Bible teaches. So take God at His word. That's the biggest sin in all the world is the sin of unbelief.

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And when someone doesn't believe, they rebel and then they're immoral. That's just the cycle.

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That's just the way it goes. That's the nature of sin. And so if you're an unbeliever today, my point is not for you to say, well,

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I do or don't have a mental illness. It does or does not exist. My point for you is you need to get saved.

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But if you're a Christian and you're born again, I'm trying to get you to think that even though something's difficult, that is no reason to quit.

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And we cannot, as Christians, we cannot blame other things, our people, our

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God, for our behavior. We love the blame game. And what I don't want you to do is to say, well,

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I have depression. I have anxiety. I want you to say, I am depressed.

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I contribute to my anxiety. I do this. Because then there's going to be hope for you when you're going to admit your problem.

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If you say, well, you know, I have an anger problem and that's because I'm Italian. It's my Italian temper.

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We cannot blame externals. You can't tell me that, you know, when two men walk down the red light district, one is lusting and the other is not lusting.

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Therefore, what's the conclusion? Well, I think what you can tell me, the conclusion is this.

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It's inner lust. It's an inward issue. It's not just environment. Oh, environment might seduce, environment might try to get you to do something.

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But at the end of the day, you are tempted and carried away by your own lust.

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James 1 .14 is very, very clear about that. And what I want to stress today is personal responsibility.

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Society hates that, but we have our own weaknesses, our own bents, our own propensities.

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And Proverbs 19 .3 is true. A man's own folly ruins his life. A man's own folly.

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That is the issue. It's not somebody else's folly. It's not what your parents did. All those things might contribute, but at the end of the day, you are responsible for you.

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What proceeds from a man, that is what defiles the man, Jesus said. For from within, out of the heart of men proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness.

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All these evil things, and he could have given more, proceed from within and defile the man.

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So when it comes to you and your problems, I think the number one thing you can do is admit them.

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I struggle with the sin of anxiety. I do sinful things and then

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I'm depressed. I am lazy and then I'm depressed. I respond wrongly to situations and then

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I don't feel good. Whatever it might be, that's what we have to do. I have bizarre behavior that's sinful instead of I'm a schizophrenic.

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And we don't do any good for people. We're not good to people when we somehow approach people with problems and then we respond wrongly even as the counselor or the helper or the discipler.

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Someone comes in and says, I struggle with anxiety and you just flatter them, and no you don't.

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You're good and you're intelligent, you're articulate and you're too hard on yourself.

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Well maybe that might help them feel better in the moment. But if somebody that you know ever calls you or comes to you and says, could you help me?

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And then they tell you they struggle with a certain sin, whether it's psychotropic kind of deals, mental illness deals, pornography or anything else, don't tell that other person that they're good.

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That doesn't help them at the end of the day. If someone says, I'm a horrible father and I need help, don't say, well no you're not, you're not that bad.

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Tell them, if you're the worst father in all the world, the gospel still can give you hope.

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There's still hope while you're alive. And when people approach you with a problem, what

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I do not do is send them to some psychotherapist.

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I don't send them to someone who can lawfully prescribe medicine. I might say, you're not feeling good, you ought to go get a complete physical.

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You know, so many people, they get to be 40, 50 years old and they just will not go in for physicals.

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They won't get their blood work done. When they're 50, they won't get a colonoscopy done. They're just prideful and they won't go in to get their medical work done on a regular basis.

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If that's you, you ought to get your cholesterol checked, your blood checked, blood sugar checked.

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If you're 50, you should have a colonoscopy. And if you don't, that's just pride. Maybe pride is contributing to some of these other things.

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But I don't go and tell people, I'm going to send you to someone else unless it's some issue that is for their organic good.

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So we're going to talk a little bit more about that, but I am running out of time.

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Well, let's see, what can I say? Info at No Compromise Radio. Let me say this in summary.

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Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. We're talking about mental illness today. Is there really such a thing?

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We didn't even really get to the point where I'm going to say I don't like to redefine sin or the effects of sin or the consequences of sin as a mental illness because it means you need recovery instead of repentance.

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If you have a mental illness, then I'd love to have you go talk to your pastor. I'd love to have you go talk to your psychotherapist and ask them, am

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I ever going to be weaned off of this? Is that possible? What you may not do, what you must not do based on my words, is just throw all your medicine away.

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I don't want you to do that. Maybe you could say that my goal would be to be less on less medicine and more actively involved in the church,

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Bible study, etc. I think that we could go for that idea. But here today we're talking about mental illness.

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It's going to be part one. We like parts here at the church, part one, part two, part five. I was on a website the other day and the guy's preaching through Romans and it said the righteousness of God, you know, part 46.

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I think there was a New England pastor in the 1800s up in the Gloucester area, and he preached 40 years in Isaiah, and when he died he was only up to chapter 8.

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I think that's too slow. Most pastors go too fast through passages. That's too slow because I think he just did exegetical work in there anyway.

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Mike Ebendroth, I'm not convinced that mental illness is true. I'm not convinced, and I want you to try to study, and I want you to listen to this show and the next one, and pull up some

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Jay Adams books to see, and pull up the Ed Welch book, Blame It on the Brain. That's your homework assignment.

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Blame It on the Brain, Ed Welch. You need to order that book. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff, or management.