Is It Ever Ok to Tranquilize Someone?

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

We're your hosts Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we seek to answer the age -old question, is it ever okay to tranquilize someone?

Now this is going to be a continuation of the episode that we put out last

Monday, and the reason that we decided to do this was because, as we were interacting with people online who were listening to the episode and sort of seeing some of the content that we put out last week, a lot of people gave us what

I will call gentle and friendly pushback.

It really wasn't. Unsurprisingly, when you talk about something like this, it's very much like a sort of golden calf type of situation, where you're really kind of treading all over something that a lot of people have built up to be something that it was never meant to be in the first place, and it's sort of like an untouchable, like, don't go there kind of topic.

But obviously, you know, with the podcast, we go there all the time, and so this is no different.

But we wanted to do a second episode and just sort of fill in some of the blanks that we felt like we didn't touch on maybe as much as we could have or we just didn't have enough time or whatever, but we wanted to dedicate some more time to this discussion because there really is something that I think a lot of people just, they really don't understand because we sort of live in what

I would call a materialistic society, which is basically just meaning we try to find, as a society, a physical explanation for everything, right?

And so we really don't make categories as a society for, like, the spiritual, for example.

Now, obviously, the church tries to do that in general, but then as a society, we try to address everything through the physical.

Now, it's funny too because we actually recorded a different episode earlier this last week that was going to be coming out on the day that you're listening to this episode, but we just got so much pushback that we decided we needed to call an audible and talk about this again and just fill in some of the blanks that maybe we didn't discuss before.

And so, Tim, we're back at it again. Sounds good, man. Talking about depression and anxiety.

Before we really dive into talking about is it okay to tranquilize someone, what were some of your thoughts in general on some of the pushback we got online?

Yeah, well, I mean, I know that we had a significant amount of pushback online, but then I also was engaging in plenty of discussions with individuals in terms of my own life with a variety of individuals along those lines.

And not all of it was crazy in terms of the active discussions that I've been having with individuals along these lines.

I mean, I've engaged in a significant number of good faith kind of discussions, but it's one of those things where this is a topic that has been so obscured as it relates to just the drugs in general, do you ever take them, the effectiveness of psychology, what are you talking about.

And it really is one of those things which is somewhat amazing just to think about a lot of the things that people hear you to be saying in an episode like that.

And part of it is because there's so many shared, there's so many assumptions that just simply aren't shared in a discussion like this.

And it is a discussion that has broad -ranging implications. And so a lot of the discussions

I've been having have been discussions that make you realize that there really are a lot of different truths that you have to believe in order to where you, pieces that you put into the puzzle, so to speak, to where you come to a position one way or another.

And I think most people feel like the safer kind of option in a discussion like this is just to essentially kind of register what

I would describe as a kind of mild concern about the fact, these drugs in general and what they're doing.

And so you have a lot of people who are willing to register a mild, even to a serious kind of concern, but then because of,

I think a lot of factors, they're unable to commit to a position with any kind of clarity as far as that goes because there's a sense in which a lot of this discussion is wrapped in a lot of very technical kind of language and related to your position on a lot of different issues.

And so most people are just kind of a little bit nervous to wade into it with, I think, the level of urgency that we really need to wade into this kind of discussion.

Considering the fact that we've literally created a generation of drug addicts, and that is disturbing.

I posted something on Twitter along these lines, and essentially

I pointed out that psychologists gave us lobotomies, for instance, and when we look back on lobotomies as a therapy for depression or anxiety or other mental disorders, we look back on that and we think largely that was monstrous to remove individuals' prefrontal lobes in order to remove the bad thoughts.

And then we also participated in electroshock therapy, and most people kind of instinctively recoil at the thought of shocking people.

Now, they're still doing it. They're still doing that one now, but now they apply anesthesia and lower the voltage or whatever, but they're still doing that kind of thing, but most people have this intrinsic...

Got to do it humane, right? Most people have an intrinsic kind of recoiling at the thought of dealing with the unpleasant thoughts in that way.

The step we're on right now is we're largely tranquilizing a lot of people. So you have different types of psychotropic drugs.

You have uppers and downers, but your vast majority of predominantly anti -anxiety meds are going to be tranquilizers essentially.

And so we've tranquilized a whole entire generation, treating them like you would treat a rampaging elephant or something like that.

And most society hasn't quite registered the horror at the thought of what we're doing yet like they did with the lobotomies.

But I assume in 20, 30 years we'll look back with great shame at what we've done here.

But then the next step is going to be human 2 .0 and transhumanism. The thing is we're not ready to approach that subject matter.

If you could literally put a chip in someone's brain and regulate their emotions to a precise degree through a computer chip, we're not ready to respond to that in moral terms and moral categories as demonstrated by the fact that we can't even respond to a lesser kind of thing with the tranquilizers.

But we really do have to think through these things. And the problem is that we don't have a doctrine of sanctification that's robust enough to even know how to approach any of it.

So with each new thing that psychology brings along in order to tell us, in order to seek to manage the basic human condition, we just kind of, as long as the doctors are telling us it's okay, then we buy it.

As long as people are saying it's safe, we just buy it uncritically. We don't have a robust enough doctrine of sanctification essentially to know what to do.

But we better figure it out because we might be pretty quickly facing the new tranquilizers with the brain chips and I don't know that we have answers to what you even do there.

Yeah, and so when you're talking about tranquilizers, just so everyone's clear, what exactly are you meaning by that word tranquilizers?

Well, everyone knows what a tranquilizer is, but the issue is what most people are not aware of is the fact that most of your anti -anxiety meds, like Xanax in particular, or your benzos are essentially tranquilizers.

So they're mild tranquilizers and that's what you're looking at. And these are kind of the go -to drug for a vast majority, a broad array of unpleasant symptoms that a person might experience is that we essentially tranquilize them is what we do.

And so a lot of your anti -anxiety meds are basically that.

They're mild tranquilizers and it's kind of like chemo essentially. So if you think about the way chemo actually works, chemo is not really the best kind of treatment for cancer.

So if you have a group of cells in the body that are growing out of control, creating a tumor, growing out of control, bad cells, you give it an individual chemo and that's essentially going to destroy the good cells along with the bad cells and it's somewhat of a gamble, so to speak.

You're hoping that with all the good cells you destroy, you also get the bad ones.

And that's essentially what tranquilizers are doing to the thoughts, if that makes sense.

And so if you have an individual who's unable to manage the worried, anxious kind of thoughts, or even the depressed thoughts depending on who is prescribing that, what you're going to do is you're going to numb the thoughts, right?

And so you have an entire generation of people who are essentially being drugged and tranquilized in an attempt to stop the bad thoughts, but then you're creating a generation of zombies in a lot of ways and that's what's happening in a lot of cases.

There's whole movies that are devoted to that basic premise of the kid having the dad who was a psychologist who thought that the answer to life was essentially to drug them to the point where they can barely think and that's what we do to a lot of elderly people too once they start exhibiting crazy sorts of symptoms.

We'll tranquilize them and that's why they look like zombies. That's what you're doing, if that makes sense.

You have the uppers and a lot of your antidepressant kind of drugs are typically uppers and then your anti -anxiety stuff, traditionally anti -anxiety stuff are downers and so you're managing it all that way.

If you have a kid who basically is struggling with attention deficit disorder, you're going to put them on a stimulant in order to essentially help their brain focus but then you're not addressing anything wrong with them, you're just putting them on a stimulant and we all know what stimulants do.

If you wake up in the morning and you're sluggish, you drink some caffeine, it will give you clarity of thought but it may be that you might not want to sleep for 3 or 4 hours too.

It may be that you want to address the problem in a different way and so you can't just look at the presence of uppers and downers and say they're accomplishing necessarily any sort of medical function, if that makes sense.

This wasn't really a planned thing. When we put out the first episode, we were initially responding to the situation with J .D.

Hall because he obviously got in a lot of trouble, disqualified from ministry for some of the stuff that he was doing and I think some more stuff has come out at least in the form of accusations.

I don't really know where all that's gone so I don't necessarily want to comment on all of that but we were initially responding to that but then,

I guess in God's sovereignty, a few days before we put out the episode, we had already recorded it.

A few days before we put out the episode, I don't know who exactly it was that put out the study but a study came out that basically undid what would be one of the biggest claims in terms of where depression comes from or one of the biggest hypotheses for where it's coming from.

We actually got a lot of this pushback which was to say, hey, look, depression, it's a chemical imbalance in the brain, right?

And that's why these antidepressants are effective is because they're sort of working to balance out what's happening chemically in the brain and then you have the study come out.

Can you tell us a little bit about that study? Yeah, the University College of London essentially put out an analysis of 17 different systematic reviews and studies which basically came to the conclusion that there may be no link between serotonin levels in the brain and depression.

Here's the thing. When you're talking about depression, we're talking about anxiety, when you're talking about really any of the psychological diagnosis that you're going to find in the

DSM -5, I mean the vast majority of them are essentially labels that are put on individuals after all medical tests have been exhausted at that point.

So if you look up depression in the DSM -5 or general anxiety disorder which you have your two major diagnosis that are being used to explain like depression and anxiety.

So depression or general anxiety disorder, when you look at these things, one of the things you're going to find is that these diagnosis, they're not like medical diagnosis.

It's what they're not. So they're not that. Like the depression diagnosis is like if you have like sudden unexplained depression for two week period that is distinguished from bereavement, other psychological disorders and medical conditions that might cause a depressed mood like thyroid problems and that kind of thing.

So like these labels, they're just descriptions of a person who is depressed or who has repeated anxiety for a period of time that are not explained by a medical problem.

Does that make sense? Yeah. So but then the prevailing kind of theory that undergird what the possible biological explanation that could be explaining it was the chemical imbalance theory.

Does that make sense? So as that relates to depression, most people kind of assume that anytime you get one of these labels, it must be because there's a chemical imbalance in your brain.

That's what most people have assumed for many years because this has been like the prevalent theory, right?

So there's not another medical cause but because you're like for instance with an antidepressant, you're going to put serotonin and give individual serotonin and all that and that's a chemical in the brain.

It must be that there's an imbalance of that. There's a study that came out recently that did an umbrella analysis of 17 different reviews and studies and they determined that this is not real, right?

Or that there's no conclusive evidence that there is any kind of chemical imbalance in the brain that's causing depression for instance.

But then this isn't really anything new. Like this is where the research has been going for many years now, right?

So for many years like when this theory was put out, with very little scientific evidence that would show even remotely the effectiveness of antidepressants in general.

And so like in the Academy, they've been moving away from this for many years but it's not been just popular knowledge at this point because it's like drug money is big business and all that and no one wants to face the obvious.

So there's a study that came out essentially that's showing the obvious. And it should be obvious because we obviously don't know what the appropriate level of chemicals there are in an individual's brain.

No one wants to volunteer to have all their brain chemicals drained and measured, right? Right, yeah,

I'm not lining up for that. You're not lining up for that. And so this is not new. Like this isn't news and I think if you listen to our old

Is Depression Real podcast, we talk about some of that at various points that like the science has been pointing away from that for a long time.

But then we put that out there in some memes along those lines about what was the one with Anakin that you put out?

Oh, yeah, that was this last week. I think it said something along the lines of when you find out that depression isn't caused by a chemical imbalance and then it's

Anakin and he's saying how many other lies has the council told me or something like that.

Well, then you have a lot of people who are essentially like emoting and responding to that. You know, like you ignorant plebs, you know, don't know the science behind this.

And then you have even people on their side coming along and essentially saying, hey, you're not aware of the article that just came out.

Yeah, I will say that that was an encouraging thing to see. There were people who initially were very aggressive towards us, you know, because of the claims.

And then you send them the articles about it or, you know, someone else would send them the articles about it.

And there were several people who were like, oh, OK, I think I was mistaken on, you know, on this one.

So that was encouraging to see. Yeah, well, that study came out, you know, and that was news, you know, to many people.

But it's, you know, it doesn't have to, you don't really have to think.

Like it's not a complicated kind of issue in general. It's one of those issues that, you know, many people just haven't thought about that taken along with blind faith.

And not only that, like almost every psychological disorder is treated that way. Like in the minds of, you know, vast majority of people, they think every, you know, psychological label essentially has some kind of chemical imbalance involved.

Because you're taking, they think you're, they don't realize that like the anti -anxiety meds are tranquilizers, right, and that kind of stuff.

And so they think across the board that everything is a chemical imbalance. But then that just shows how pervasive and wide this theory has spread to where it's not even understood to be a theory in the minds of many.

It's like an immutable law of physics or something like that. Right. Yeah, that you can't transgress. Right.

But, and I think ultimately, you know, a big part of that is, I think for a lot of Christians and probably non -believers as well, it gives you an out for sure when it comes to depression and anxiety.

You know, to be able to say, hey, look, it's, you know, it's not anything because of me.

It's, you know, just the chemicals in my brain, man. What do you want me to start managing the chemicals in my brain manually or something?

You know, it gives people an out. And we talked about that a lot in the Is Depression Real episode,

I think. But I think it is worth repeating again because there are very many people.

I have learned that if I have learned nothing else this last week, I have learned that there are very, very, very many people who do not believe that depression and anxiety are spiritual problems.

At all. At all. At all. Or if they do, they are very willing to excuse anyone who is dealing with it and not like hold them accountable.

And I don't think, I don't think, I think a lot of people are, you know, they're not sitting there thinking to themselves, hey,

I want to make sure this person is like depressed and suffering as long as possible. And so I'm not going to tell them, you know, what

God has told us in order to deal with these types of things. I don't think people are approaching it from that standpoint.

I genuinely do think a lot of people are just convinced that bringing it up at all in like a sin category is going to do more harm than good to the individual, right?

Right. And so at that point you just say, well, you know, I'm not going to bring that up.

Yeah, let them take the antidepressants. Let them, you know, go see a psychologist or something and get it.

Maybe they can figure it out for them. Well, part of that is, part of what's happening there is that psychology is kind of like a parasite discipline, essentially.

And it's attached itself to the medical community in such a way that, in a pretty pervasive way when you think about it.

And so for many people there's, it's very difficult for them to, you know, weigh in on that kind of issue.

And the only way I know how to describe it is kind of to describe it like COVID or something like that.

So, you know, when you think about like what has happened with the COVID stuff, you know, part of our reaction in general, my reaction in general to like the

COVID phenomenon was that, you know, I'm being told that something is a pandemic. And I'm looking around my eyes and my eyes are telling me that I don't know anyone who's died of this thing.

And so, you know, every single, like I still don't know anyone who's died of COVID, but then we were told it was kind of this massive emergency that you had to shut down the entire country for years about.

And no one could go to work because of the possibility that someone could die or something like that, right? And then, you know, the vast majority of stories about people who actually died at that level were like individuals who had multiple comorbidities and significant, you know, problems and were one step away from death anyways.

And so, like then the issue becomes it's like, well, maybe this is a threat.

I mean, like if you have a nation of over 300 million people, I'm sure that you can show stories of perfectly healthy people who get taken out by it.

But is this problem reaching to a level where you want to shut down the entire world over, right?

Like particularly when it, you know, all the statistics coming in, even with the exaggerated numbers towards the end are like 99 .95

% survival rate. Maybe this isn't what you think it is. And so, like the issue is people do have to use their brains.

And then like when you look at a problem like anxiety and depression, there are a variety of like medical things that could happen to an individual that might produce anxious feelings or depressed moods.

Like, you know, like for example, like hypothyroidism, even though the thyroid stuff is kind of being way over diagnosed, those can produce like things like anxious feelings or depressed feelings or something like that.

Or, you know, vitamin deficiencies or cancer or there's a variety of medical conditions that can make a person feel sluggish and lethargic and, you know, on edge.

But then what's happening though in the main, and this is what people just, like it just, it's hard to interact with people in the main is like, you know, the vast majority of individuals in America.

Yeah, let's just talk about American Christians, for instance. Like your vast majority of American Christians are listening to prosperity stuff on the radio.

They're listening to Hillsong, they're listening to Bethel, they're listening to songs about Jesus being their boyfriend or girlfriend, you know, and then singing about their victory, their prosperity victory and facing their giants and all that.

So they're listening to a bunch of prosperity stuff and that's what they're listening to on a regular basis.

They're going to, you know, churches that are not doing church, this one, they're not challenging them in any way or expecting them to do anything, you know.

In our neighborhood group we, you know, there's a lady who visited Church of the Highlands in Birmingham here and was asking for recommendations of other non -judgmental churches, right?

But that's American Christianity. So American Christianity is you're listening to all these milquetoast kind of songs and these milquetoast kind of pastors and, you know, it's all,

I'm broken and I'm wounded and I'm damaged and Jesus is my girlfriend and everything else. And then, you know, you go from that and then they're also, you know, watching eight hours of entertainment a day, like the standard

American Christian. Like their house is a mess. Instead of getting married, you know, they're addicted to entertainment.

You know, they're young people living in their mom's house, you know, addicted to entertainment. Instead of getting kids, they buy pets who are going to destroy their house and get pet hair all over the place and make their house smell like a kennel.

And then they're, you know, remarkably overweight, have horrible diet and exercise plans, their muscles are atrophy, they don't move very much, they just sit around and they're entertained.

And then they never read their Bible. So the vast majority of American Christians are like in name are never reading their

Bible, never praying, their life is a mess, they're characterized by sloth, you know, like they're not, they're never actively sharing their faith.

Like, I mean, I know, I mean, the vast majority of professing Christians in America probably never share their faith even once a year.

Right. Right. And so you look at that and you look at that kind of situation and it's like, what do you think is going to be the result of this?

Like, what do you think is going to be the result? The result is obviously that you're going to be weighed down by guilt and shame and condemnation in the main.

And if you go to a doctor or a psychologist, they're going to give you general, you know, anxiety disorder or clinical depression as an explanation for why you feel bad all the time.

Right? Right. Yeah. And so I'm comparing that to the COVID kind of thing. If you just look around with your eyes, you know that that's what's happening 99 % of the time.

But then because there are some cases, you know, somewhere along the line where someone might conceivably, you know, actually have something medical wrong with them, then the vast majority of people are just gun shy and basically just say, well, we don't want to talk about like the obvious problem, like the obvious elephant in the room, you know, because we don't want to be guilty of, you know, jumping the gun when people, when there might be some, you know, you know, one in a 10 ,000 kind of situation where something, you know, someone might have actually something wrong with them.

But in most cases, even when there is like, you know, something like that, like if they would just like fix their diet and exercise a little bit more, most of it would go away anyways.

So, you know, and so we're in a situation where, you know, then you have to demand an entire ceasefire on the discussion of anxiety and depression because of the possibility that there might be one person who might one in 10 ,000 who might have a legitimate something wrong with them.

But then the problem is you look at the Bible and the Bible says, be anxious for nothing, that's actually command, right? And then, you know, you put out a verse,

Psalm 94, 19, when my anxious thoughts multiply within me, it says, well, you know, essentially go to the doctor and, you know, get put on a tranquilizer or something.

Take Xanax. Yeah, take Xanax. Or, you know, don't be judgmental because, you know, who knows, maybe in 100 years,

I'll figure out what the medical cause is for it, you know. So, you have like verses in the Bible that just have no meaning because we're just like this ceasefire on the topic in general.

It doesn't say that by the way. Hopefully, that's obvious for everyone, but it doesn't say that.

When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, thy consolations delight my soul, you know. Yeah, and so, you know,

I found it interesting. I was reading about that report and I thought it was a –

I think I was reading out of like Psychiatry Today. I don't think

I ever saw the Hill version of it, but I think I was reading it. Yeah, a lot of people are reporting on it, yeah.

Yeah, I think I read Psychiatry Today's article on it. I can't remember who it was that wrote the article, but, you know, it was kind of funny when

I was reading it because towards the end of it, you know, he makes a – he tries to qualify – the author of this article did.

I think he tried to qualify his review of the report that came out by saying, hey, you know, look – he did strongly say like anyone who's telling you that depression is from a chemical imbalance is either ignorant or is lying to you.

So he took a really strong stance on that, but then he was still trying to qualify the article by saying antidepressants may or may not work.

But what I thought was really interesting was – and sort of really like an obvious –

I thought it was obvious kind of like that you don't even need a report to know, but he obviously felt like this needed to be said.

Towards the end of the article, he basically was – he wrote, you know, that essentially it seems like depression like the majority of the time is caused by external factors, right?

And now he says it's caused by – I don't know that we would say it's caused by –

I don't know that we would communicate that way, but he was at least acknowledging like, all right, if it's not a chemical imbalance, it does legitimately seem like the explanation for why people are depressed are their circumstances, right?

And I thought that was sort of like a, well, yeah, obviously. Like, I mean, that feels silly to be reading from a doctor.

Now, I understand there, you know, like you were saying, there can be exceptions to it and it can be a complicated issue to try and figure out like where things are coming from specifically, but I thought it was –

Yeah, that is the best they can do, you know, at that point. So, you know, part of it is like when you have a materialistic view of man, like you don't have a category for like a sinful heart that's in rebellion against the

Lord. And so then, you know, the explanation is reduced to it must be something biological, meaning it must be like a chemical imbalance.

Like that's the only internal category they have is some sort of like, you know, coming from within, it either is genetic or it must be some sort of chemical imbalance or it must be something like that.

But then when you've ruled that out, like it's not a chemical imbalance, then you're left with environment, you know, for the secular psychologists.

And I would say that the environment like plays a –

I mean, it obviously is a factor, it's just not the only factor, right? Like meaning – but that's all you have if you're an atheist really is just all you have left is, well, your background, your upbringing, you know, trauma in your life, you know, stress in your life or, you know, that kind of stuff.

And so they only have an external explanation, but then biblically we have like you are an embodied soul, right?

You know, you have like – you have a sinful heart that's in rebellion against the

Lord. And the issue is like you can put like – you can literally, you know, take a

Christian, you can put him in a Japanese concentration camp or something like that and they don't have to be depressed.

Despite the fact that they're being beat, you know, with bamboo sticks or whatever, having their fingernails pulled out.

And so like they still can't account for like the fact that we have a sinful nature that doesn't have to respond, you know, to whatever external environmental stimulus that comes our way, you know, but that's what they have left.

But I mean of the two explanations, like it being some sort of chemical imbalance in your brain or it being, you know, your environment,

I think your point is obviously like we should probably lean – like it makes more sense to lean towards, yeah, you're just responding to different situations that are happening in your life with, you know, sorrow or worry, right?

I mean that's kind of – Yeah, I mean it just feels like kind of like, well, yeah, duh. Well, but the only reason you can't go there is because there's a lot of money in drugs that have clouded the discussion, you know, so.

Yeah, I think even the article I read, I think even, you know, he was – I don't know that he directly was accusing, you know, pharmaceutical companies, but I think he was sort of implying like there's a lot of money here, you know.

So, yeah, when antidepressants were being approved initially, there was five studies

I believe that were done on antidepressants and, you know, three of them I think if I'm remembering correctly, they showed that they didn't perform better than a placebo or a sugar pill or something along those lines.

But in order to approve them, they needed some studies. So, five were done. Two showed that they, you know, performed slightly better on the scale than a placebo, which is a sugar pill.

And so, they obviously went with those two studies in order to approve. But then performing slightly better, like there's like a point scale or whatever, and essentially from what

I remember, you know, a cup of coffee will move like the individual six points up on the scale, and these were only moving it up two points, if that makes sense.

So, like that, like over and against a sugar pill. So, it's not like it was like scraping at the bottom of the barrel, and then, you know, there's a big discussion within psychology in general as to whether or not they should allow the drug companies to perform the studies.

And so, but, you know, there's a 2002 article as it relates to this point, you know, in the

Washington Post, against depression, a sugar pill is hard to beat. This isn't new, man.

Like, this stuff isn't new. I mean, people have known for years that these antidepressants aren't performing statistically better than sugar pills.

And people have known for years, I mean, there's been, you know, articles, you know, 15 years old that are saying the same thing that's coming out now.

What's different that's happening right now is that we just got done being deceived so thoroughly with the

COVID stuff. And because we've been deceived so thoroughly with the COVID stuff, people have had their confidence shook by the medical community and what they're telling us.

Because if you could, you know, like, I think you have these pharmaceutical companies that have essentially committed genocide against our country, and a lot of people feel about it like that, and I do too.

And so, when you're, you know, when you see people, like, healthy people dropping dead, you know, in tennis games and everything else, and, you know, sports stars and all that, and UPS guys, you know, falling over in the sun, and, you know, you know it's from this vaccine, but then you're being told it's climate change now.

I think there's, like, a lot of people who have lost faith in the medical community. And now this kind of article is, like,

I think there's been a lot of people who are now questioning a lot of things like that, you know, and this article has gotten a lot of traction from the kind of individuals who have been disillusioned by what's going on in other areas.

Pete That's right. Yeah, and so, in light of the recent studies that have come out, you know, a lot of people would say, hey, you know, you are harming a lot of people when you say, like, people need to be held accountable for their depression or their anxiety, right?

So, I guess that sort of begs the question, I mean, like, what would your response be to that?

Should we? I chuckled. Yeah, you chuckled. You chuckled.

So, that kind of sabotages my setup. I'm sorry. But I'm going to continue on.

Go on, carry on. It was like you didn't chuckle. So, you know, what is your response to that?

I mean, should we be telling people to get off of these drugs or should we say, like, hey, you know, maybe there's still some value in them or is it just like a, well, hey, look, you know,

I don't think it's actually helping them, but then they're going to respond really negatively if I tell them, you know, that they need to get off the drugs because it's not going to help them.

I mean, there's a bunch of different ways you can go here. Yeah, there's two kind of questions there.

One is should we tell people to get off the drugs and then two, like, you know, are we harming people by trying to raise a warning call against the antidepressants in general?

Let me start there and then we'll go to the should you tell people to get off the drugs kind of thing.

So, if you take something like, because there's different types of drugs doing different kinds of things,

I'll just try to talk about specific types. And so, you know, generally your anti -anxiety meds, and people don't know this, but just a side note, a lot of your anti -anxiety meds are being used now to treat depression also.

And so, there's not like any, like, it's not just your anti -anxiety meds, you know, are treating anxiety and your antidepressants are treating depression.

These drugs are used in a wide variety of circumstances, okay. There's a study that just came out that was showing that benzos are your classic anti -anxiety meds are the first line of defense in one in ten cases of depression now.

And part of that's because, like, you know, your antidepressants and your, part of that is because the fact that, you know, depression and anxiety are, what's it called, are often a package deal in an individual.

And there's not, like, a lot of care that's being given by the doctors. I wish that weren't true, but I mean,

I know plenty of cases where my church members have gone to, and individuals I know have gone to the doctor and they're just almost arbitrarily being given these labels with, like, no care whatsoever.

And it can go either way, you know. And so, but, like, the issue is, let's take something like your classic, you know, anti -anxiety meds, your benzos, for instance.

I mean, they're essentially tranquilizers, okay. And so, if you're going to ask, like, if you call them tranquilizers, you don't call them medication.

And that's part of the problem is that everyone thinks these things are medication. And so, if you're a kind of individual saying, don't take your meds, or, you know, you should consider not taking your meds, everyone thinks, like, you're monstrous and Hitler.

But if you call them a tranquilizer, then, and you quit calling them medication, because that's what they are, they're mild tranquilizers.

And, you know, in some cases, like, when they have drug - What makes you say that, by the way?

Like, that they're mild tranquilizers? Well, I mean, every, just look it up. Just look up, you know, look up anti -anxiety drugs on the internet, and one of the things you're going to find is they describe them as mild tranquilizers, because that's what they are.

So, like, that's not a, that's not me putting a negative slant on it.

That's what every website that's going to describe what they actually are tells you they are.

It's just no one knows that. Does that make sense? Like, very few people know that. So, when a drug like Xanax, for instance, is prescribed for depression, it's going to be, like, prescribed at double the dose.

It's already addictive, and it's a tranquilizer. And so, it's going to be more of a tranquilizer at that point.

But, like, the issue, though, is, like, let's just deal with tranquilizers for a second. If you quit calling them medicine, you start calling them tranquilizers, all right?

And I'm obviously not saying every psychotropic drug is a tranquilizer. I'm talking about the ones that are tranquilizers, like the benzos.

When you give someone a tranquilizer, if you think about them like a tranquilizer, then it should cause you to think, like, is it ethical or moral to treat someone like you would treat a rampaging elephant, right?

So, like, if you see a – no one's going to question whether or not you see a rampaging elephant in the street, you shoot it with a tranquilizer, whether or not that may be – or very few people.

You know, you have the animal rights crazies who might consider it cruel, but the vast majority of people think, hey, that's okay.

But then when you're tranquilizing actual human beings, like, and that's what's happening, then you should think, whoa, like, is that normal or reasonable or something that we should be doing, right?

Once you take it out of the realm – like, the euphemism medicine, you say it's a tranq, then at least it gives you some awareness of what you're even talking about at that point, right?

Like, what we're talking about is tranquilizing someone. And so then, like, why would you do that, you know?

And so that brings the ethical and moral issues to the front, you know? And so, like, now when individuals are – like, you're saying, isn't it – the response is, like, isn't it cruel to question what's happening?

It's like, well, I don't want, you know – I've known plenty of people who have been on an anxiety med, so I can't even have a conversation with,

I can't share the gospel with because I can't concentrate on anything I'm saying because they are functionally, you know, basically tranquilized to the point where they can barely think, right?

And so, like, it's not intuitive or obvious to me that I'm the bad guy by asking them to consider maybe talking to their doctor to get them off these things so I can have a conversation with them, right?

Right. So with a lot of older people in particular, like, you have – like, what you have is they start getting put on these, you know, on tranquilizers and, like, they're basically zombies, man.

Like, they're basically just, you know, almost subhuman at that point. Like, you're robbing them of their intrinsic dignity.

And I'm not trying to say that there might not be some cases where that may be wise or helpful.

I'm just trying – just call it what it is and then let the moral issues be what they are. So the issue then in general though is with these drugs, you know, if you understand what's happening, you're just talking about uppers or downers, you know, as a general rule.

Then, like, you know, if you – you do have to step back and say, is this the way that God wants us to try to manage bad thoughts?

It's either to put, like, a, you know, a blanket on ourself to where we can't concentrate or to put some stimulant in our brain to where, you know, we're, you know, hyped up on some kind of drug.

Is that – does God think that the primary way to manage people's behavior is through uppers and downers in that way?

Because that doesn't feel very medicine -y, you know what I mean? And, like, in some sense, you're just, like, treating a person like an animal.

And so there are ethical kind of discussions that are happening along those lines. But then not only that, you know, not every antidepressant or anti -anxiety med is equally addictive.

But some people, like with some of the antidepressants, can get off of them with little trouble, but that's not the case for everyone.

Right. And so, like, and then you look at all the massive side effects that come with these things, and it should be remarkably concerning.

I mean, most people who – like, most people who are on the drugs, at some point they see all the bad side effects and they just, like, they want to get off, but they can't.

Because the moment they try to get off, the moment, like, it's just, like, trying to get off caffeine or something like that.

And then when you're getting off caffeine, like, you know, you would be excused for thinking that, like, if you didn't realize that it was the caffeine making you feel crazy, right?

You would be excused for thinking, well, I must need caffeine in order to be okay, because it's medicine, because when

I get off of it, everything feels terrible. Right. But all that's happened is you're chemically dependent on the substance at this point.

And when you get off of it, like, you might be suicidal, you might be, like, homicidal, you know, with some of these things.

And so the side effects are really bad. They're, you know, in a lot of cases, they're very addictive. And, you know,

I do think you have, like, a younger generation of people who are just – don't want to be drug addicts, you know, who are kind of a lot more alert than some of the older generation at that point.

But I don't think it's even remotely cruel to ask basic questions, like, why are we – you're asking the same kind of questions you ask of a lobotomy, right?

So with a lobotomy, if someone wants to drown out all the bad thoughts by cutting out a portion of their brain, you might look at them and say, is that the answer, right?

Like, is that the answer to remove your – permanently remove the ability you have to think like a human being, you know?

And so then, you know, dealing with tranquilizers or with uppers or whatever, like, just asking basic questions, is this how you get rid of the bad thoughts?

The only thing you can do is just, you know, put a wet blanket on all the thoughts? Like, turn yourself into a zombie?

I don't know if that's the right path, right? And even if you do it to, like, very small dosage, is that the answer, is to muffle the thoughts?

Like, it doesn't even seem logical. So, you know, I think, you know, if you do have concern for an individual's soul and you have an understanding of, like, what the

Bible says, the Bible does say the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for casting down strongholds and arguments and every, you know, lofty opinion that raises itself up against the knowledge of God.

You know, and then taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, essentially. And so you get passages like that.

And I think, like, the Bible is saying the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but involve taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

It doesn't seem to involve tranquilizing every thought to the obedience of Christ. Right. Right.

So then if you were to ask the question, though, and I'll try to answer this one shorter. If you were to ask the question, should you encourage people to get off the, you know, the meds, you know, or the tranks or the uppers or the whatever,

SSRIs, should you encourage them to do so? I would think you, if you're in a position of authority in their life, you should be pretty cautious in that because, like, because the side effects are often so severe when they get off, depending on the kind of psychotropic drug they're on.

I mean, they could kill themselves or kill someone else or something. And a lot of, like, you know, a lot, like, there is a rise of school shootings that have been happening.

And a lot of that is because you have a generation of kids who are drug addicts on these drugs that are brain altering drugs.

And so I don't think you want to, like, be an individual who's just saying, you know, get off of them right now or else, you know, because, like, what you might want to do is more encourage them to go talk to a doctor and talk about how can they wean themselves off of these things.

Yeah. And consider weaning themselves off of, you know, unless you're opening yourself up to litigation along those lines.

And that's part of the reason why people are so afraid to even go there is because they don't want to get sued. You know, and I think some of that's reasonable.

Like, you don't want to get sued, you know, with, but, you know, as a general, I don't know how you, like, if you're living in a society where everyone is just, like, performing lobotomies on people in order to get them to not have the bad thoughts anymore.

And that's pervasive and widespread. I think you want to say, hey, we got to stop doing this. Right? Right. Yeah.

And, you know, if someone's going to say, well, you're, you know, engaging in criminal malpractice, it's like, well, you know, in 50 years, we're going to look back on this with great shame.

So maybe we should, we can get a head start, you know? Yeah. And the same thing with, you know, if you have a generation of, you know, normal kids who are, you know, normal boys who are, you know, having helicopter women, you know, basically turn them into drug addicts to suppress their masculinity.

At some point you might say, hey, maybe this isn't a drug problem, you know? Like, maybe this is a society problem, you know, upbringing problem.

Maybe it's something else. And so I think we need to be pushing against this trend.

And I think, you know, I think there's a lot of momentum that now is being, momentum in this area where people are just kind of tired of being drug addicts and they don't trust, you know, pharmaceutical companies like they used to.

And so I suspect that we're going to get on the other side, but then I do think the next thing will be like human 2 .0

and the transhumanism and we'll be doing the same thing with the next technology because I don't know that we have the arguments we need to push back on any of it, you know?

Basically, the only reason why we're pushing back on lobotomies at this point is because science decided it was cruel. And so, you know,

I think most people are waiting around for science to decide that tranquilizing a generation of people is cruel, you know, and treating them like an animal, you know?

So I think we'll get there, I just, but then we need to think through why that was bad, you know, so we can escape the next round, you know?

And so, but I don't think, I think most people, like, just, you know, as a thought experiment, like, just, you know,

I mean, you know the Stepford Wife kind of movie or whatever, like, you know, there's a way to turn, like, if you could turn a woman into a robot, right?

If you could put a chip in her brain and basically control her behavior to such an extent that, like, she always smiles at you and she always is nice to you and she always responds to every one of your requests,

I mean, there'd be no shortage of feminists who would basically look at you as literally Hitler for reducing her to some sort of automaton like that, you know what

I'm saying? Like, they would think that that would be fundamentally immoral, but, like, we're not doing much, like, we're not doing anything different with tranquilizing people.

We're reducing their capacity to think and have normal human emotions that they probably should have, right?

Like, we're reducing their capacity to have these normal emotions that God has put in their life in order to wake them up, right?

And so, if we're the people who are coming along and just, like, destroying, like, if you're living a life of rebellion against God and we're the people coming along basically just removing their capacity to feel the consequences of that, we're doing something profoundly immoral, right?

And we're not thinking about that and we'll be, you know, caught up in the next wave as soon as it comes, for sure.

So, do you think that there's any use, you know, for these types of things in terms of sanctification at all?

Like, when it comes to, you know, like Xanax and stuff like that? No, no.

Well, let me break that up into two questions, alright? So, is there any use for it at all and then is there any use related to sanctification?

Sanctification is a hard no. Like, absolutely no. Like, no way at all, right?

Kind of no. But any use at all? Well, let me give you a scenario. So, there is an old guy

I know that I'm going to do the best I can to not, to change his story a little bit and not say his name.

And so, but there's an old guy I know who essentially I had regular interactions with and he had a wife who was basically kind of a contentious woman, okay?

Like, she was the definition of… Like a sleep in the corner of… The rooftop kind of woman. The roof of your house kind of woman.

Yeah, and he was getting older, you know, and she was, she was just that woman. And every time I went around, you know, he, you know, he was kind of a yes, dear guy, right?

Okay? He was a yes, dear, you know, you know, gotta keep, if mom ain't happy, ain't nobody happy kind of guy who never really pushed back against it and just kind of grit his teeth and kind of, okay, smile on the face, try to be happy kind of guy, right?

But then her demands just were constant and her complaining and her fussing were constant and it's just that kind of scenario.

But then, like, what happened was, you know, all of a sudden he got, I think it was dementia or something like that.

See, Alzheimer's or dementia. I think it was dementia. He got dementia. And then instead of being, like, the nice guy who's, like, trying to keep, you know, the unreasonable woman from getting too upset, right?

Then all of a sudden he's, like, you know, yelling at her and screaming at her and shaking her, right?

And it was profoundly, like, startling to her. Now, in that kind of scenario, what happened is, like, what, you know, he had anger, obviously, that he had built up over the years towards her and in a way that's somewhat, you know, understandable if you knew her, right?

I mean, it's somewhat understandable why that would be the case. But then once, like, his ability to, like, filter it goes, then all of a sudden he's yelling at her and shaking her and all that, right?

So in that kind of scenario, then you have to figure out, well, what are you going to do with that, right?

So what are you going to do with a guy like that who, like, you know, you can't just kill him off or something like that, right?

I mean, like, that would be immoral. So what do you do? And I'm not suggesting that as, like, a positive.

I'm just trying to say that, like, what do you do in that kind of scenario considering that you're a

Christian and you're not, like, eugenics and all that are not on the table? And so, like, the issue then, like, with that kind of thing is that, you know, if you put him on a tranquilizer, like, yeah, what you're going to do is you're going to turn him into a zombie, right?

You're going to remove his ability to think. He's going to be, you know, basically kind of, he's going to be there, but he's not going to have the capacity to think very much.

I mean, you can go that route, and, you know, but I would like people to, if they're going to consider going that route, like, in order to keep him from being a danger to himself and other people and try to preserve as much human dignity as you possibly can,

I would like you to at least have your eyes open as to what you're doing, right? And so, what hospice does a lot of times, they step in and they just drug people to death, right?

And then they're basically just sitting there, you know, once they start becoming, you know, hard to manage, like, it's just like you come in there and drug them, you know?

And a lot of people, like, they're being told in order to comfort themselves that this is just medication. It's like, just look at what it is.

It's just, they're, you know, like, this isn't medication, you know?

This is treating them like an angry rampaging bull. And so, you know, I'm open to the idea that that may be okay, but I at least want to call it what it is.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Like, it's an unfortunate thing, but then there are situations where it probably is necessary, like, for people's safety and whatnot.

Yeah. So, at least you call it what it is and, you know, treat it like what it is. But yeah, I mean, I think there are, you know, using a tranquilizer in general, if we're just going to talk about that kind of, like, thing.

I mean, I think that there might be some, I mean, you obviously want to use sedatives, strong sedatives if you're doing surgery on someone, you know, and then you're just knocking them out.

But then what you're doing in that way is, like, I think in cases where there's something, like, medically wrong with an individual that can be established, like dementia or something like that, you can do a brain scan, you can see that there's something actually wrong.

Like, there are scenarios, particularly those kind of scenarios where you say, hey, like, this isn't medicine in the traditional sense.

This is, like, we're knocking a person out in order to, you know, perform surgery on them.

Or we're long -term tranquilizing them to keep them from killing themselves or someone else.

Like, there may be scenarios like that, but, you know, you want to know that there's something medical wrong with the person.

You know, if you consider a soldier who's gotten his skin blown off, you might want to knock him out for a while and give him some time to heal so he doesn't have to be in excruciating pain and agony and all that.

But, you know, what's happening is you have individuals who, like, their first response is basically to tranquilize people.

And instead of, like, understanding that, like, the vast majority of cases, there's nothing medically wrong with these people.

And 99 % of the time you have someone who gets a general anxiety disorder diagnosis or clinical depression diagnosis.

Those are the labels that individuals get when all other medical tests have been rolled out.

And in these cases, like, these are the worst possible solutions that you can do, you know, at this point.

Like, this is not, like, you know, it's kind of like putting, you know, an

ADHD kid on Ritalin or whatever as your first thing that you're going to do. It's like, hey, you know, this kid probably has two parents who are working full -time and is being raised by pagans, you know, has no attention from his parents, doesn't feel like his parents love him.

Like, he's, you know, addicted to entertainment. They're addicted to entertainment. He has no interaction with anyone.

He really has never learned to read in his life because, you know, he has the attention span of a goldfish, right?

And he has a lot of hyperactivity and a lot of, you know, aggression probably just because he's a guy and he hasn't been taught how to manage that.

And so he's been abandoned by his parents, raised by pagans, you know, taught that everything about himself is fundamentally wrong and needs to change.

You know, he's addicted to all sorts of entertainment and your response is to put him on a stimulant, right? It's like,

I think that there's other problems that are here that that isn't the first response you should go to, you know.

And I think what we need to do is regain a sense of the obvious, you know. In a vast majority of these kind of cases, what we're talking about is anxiety and depression are the normal human condition that comes from individuals who are weighed down by guilt and shame and condemnation and living worthless lives and that's what you feel, man, you know.

And so, yeah, I mean, I think there may be conceivably some scenarios like that where, you know, you might be able to do that, but then in the vast majority of cases, you're just putting a band -aid on problems that, you know, need to be solved in other ways.

It's like sitting on a tack and taking pain meds. Like the best thing to do is to get up and remove the tack, right?

You can limp along, you know, but you're just putting a band -aid on symptoms if that.

And the problem is that they don't even work. They're not even working much better than placebos in the main.

And then, like, you know, despite all the propaganda, they're not even beating out sugar pills, man.

And then they have all these side effects. It's just like a bad solution. It's just bad. They're addictive, you know. So, if they're not, it's a hard no.

Oh, you're asking about sanctification though too, right? Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Well, I was going to explain what you mean in terms of it's a hard no for sanctification purposes.

Yeah. So, the Bible says the weapons of warfare are not carnal, right? Like, so, this is what people don't realize.

And so, like, just imagine the Stepford Wife kind of scenario, right, that I brought up.

And, you know, you can just put a chip in her brain and turn her into a submissive wife.

Was she sanctified in that? No. Like, why not? Well, because it's more than, it's more than just, you know, actions.

Right. So, you can get all the right. So, like, you know, like, God doesn't want a woman just to be a mindless slave of a man.

Like, that's not what God wants, right? God doesn't want just a woman who has, like, if you could just, you know, flip a switch in her brain or something or install some programming and get her to, like, you know, just unconditionally do whatever a man says to do.

Like, that, everyone would look at that and you would say, hey, you've just, like, removed her humanity, right? Like, she's no longer a human being.

Like, these, like, this submission to her husband is not coming from her heart, from a heart that desires and longs to obey.

It's, like, it's coming from a computer chip that's forcing her against her will to.

Yeah. And, like, and the whole point, though, is that, like, there's a sense in which, like, a man, like, needs a check on some of, like, he's a sinner, he needs to check on some of the stupid things he comes up with, right?

And a wife needs to, like, you know, she needs to, you know, obey the Lord first and not just her husband.

And so, like, just think about a scenario. Absolutely, yeah. Think about, like, the lobotomy. Think about the lobotomy.

Like, did that fix anything? So, you had anxious, worried thoughts and you cut out part of your brain. Did that fix anything? No. Like, it didn't do anything.

It just removed your capacity to think, right? And so, you put someone on a heavy tranquilizer, you know, that's, I mean, it's supposed to be a light tranquilizer, but often, like, it just, they, it has a sugar pill effect in this and they start upping the dose and then they change medications and get them on two or three different drugs and then they're just a mess, man.

But, like, all you're doing is, like, you're doing nothing different than you're doing with a lobotomy is that you're using the creation to mask unpleasant feelings.

But then the problem is that, like, that's not the way sanctification works, right? So, the way sanctification works is that, like, we're moral individuals who are created in the image of God and, you know, like, let's talk about the standard

American who is watching eight hours of TV a day, you know, two income family that has their pet and has their kid all day long at daycare kind of thing that they've functionally abandoned.

And then they come home and they're all addicted, you know, the two parents come home from work, they're all addicted to their entertainment together and they spend all their time sitting around, they're lazy, they're overweight, they've abandoned their kids, they've abandoned the responsibility they have to raise their kids, right?

They never read the Bible and then they go to some church where Stephen Furtick kind of guy is preaching, right?

And then, you know, and then in their free time they're listening to, you know, songs about Jesus being their boyfriend and, you know, them being broken and they never read the

Bible. Like, what do you think that they should feel? Like, what do you think they should feel? That kind of person, right?

Well, what they should feel is anxiety and depression, that's what they should feel, okay? But then the thing is, like, that anxiety and depression that they feel is

God's way of, like, helping to wake them up about the nature of their condition, right?

Like, they feel guilt and shame and condemnation because they're moral beings who were created in the image of God and they're made to do more than this, right?

To just be entertainment junkies, to, you know, let their bodies atrophy to, like, you know, gain 100 pounds and, you know, have all the problems that come with that.

Like, that's not what they're made for, right? They're not made for that. And so you do that, you feel guilt, you feel shame, you feel condemnation, and that's like the prodigal son, you know, experiencing the bitter fruit of his rebellion against God as he's going to end up, like, eating with the pigs, right?

Now, if you come along and you just basically give the prodigal son food indefinitely and let him keep on going to the prostitutes and give them endless supply of money, you haven't helped him be sanctified, you're an obstacle in the way of his sanctification.

That's why the Bible says if an individual doesn't work, don't let him eat, right? Like, you're not helping him at all, okay?

Now, like, if you imagine that, like, God has designed these negative emotions to be things which, like, remind us of our need for him.

So, you know, David of his sin says, when I kept silent, you know, my body wasted away. You know, the

Bible says that essentially a tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot.

So, God has designed these negative kind of things to be things that wake us up, right?

And then, like, God has designed, like, so we're complicated along those lines.

Now, if you come along and you just tranquilize all that away, all that you've done is you've cut off their need for God at a pretty fundamental level.

You haven't helped them be sanctified. Like, that's not an aid to sanctification, that is a hindrance to them feeling the things they need to feel in order to make the changes they need to make, right?

And so, there's no, like, you know, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long -suffering, gentleness, meekness, kindness, faithfulness, self -control.

And you can feel, like, contrary to the prosperity folks, like, happiness isn't the good emotion and sadness is a bad emotion.

Like, there are times when you should feel, like, the thing is, like, most people, like that standard person

I'm talking about, they feel happy about all the wrong things and they feel sad about all the wrong things, right?

And so, they don't feel sad about their sin, they feel sad about their circumstances and their situations, right?

And they don't feel happy in the Lord, they feel happy in all their stuff, right? And so, if you come along and just try to change their emotions, you didn't fix anything, man, you know?

Like, they need to repent of their sin, they need to repent of their sins of omission, repent of their sins of commission, they need to turn to the

Lord, they need to live a life worth living, they need to, you know, demonstrate what it looks like to be parents to their kids, you know?

Like, they've been created to worship God and to glorify God and to make Him known to other people.

And the more that they fight that, the more they're going to feel miserable. And if you come along and just kind of, you know, tranquilize all the bad thoughts, you know, or give them uppers, you know, indefinitely, forever in perpetuity, all you're doing is dampening that, those emotions

God has designed to actually produce, you know, sanctification in certain ways.

Does that make sense? Petey. Right, yeah. Now, in terms of sanctification, if we're saying that those types of drugs are not helpful for sanctification at all, are we then essentially saying, you know, the only response we have is to, like, pray the depression away?

Like, Philippians 4 talks about through prayer and supplication, making our requests known to God and peace that surpasses all understanding will be with us, right?

So, that's like what Philippians 4, I'm summarizing it a little bit, but that's what it says.

So, are we then just saying, like, alright, the only, you know, recourse you have against depression or anxiety is to pray it away?

That same argument is being made in the same -sex attraction Christian movement, you know, to pray the gay away.

So, what you have happening is you have individuals who have a very stunted view of the way sanctification actually works, and so what they think is anytime they have an unpleasant feeling, whether it's depression or anxiety, they think that what people like us are saying is, well, just pray it away, right?

And then if you have an unpleasant, or if you have, like, undesired attraction to the member of the same -sex or same -gender, then they think people like us who are saying there's hope for change, the only thing you can do is pray it away.

And that's a dodge. I mean, what that is is that just shows that you have very little understanding of the way sanctification actually works.

And so, you know, you can look at Philippians 4 .6, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

That isn't saying pray the anxiety away in some simple way. That's saying, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

Like, that's saying, like, there are solutions to anxiety, and the kind of solution the Bible's giving is more of a comprehensive kind of solution.

Meaning, like, you know, if, like, the reason why we're anxious is generally there's something we want that we don't have that we think we need in order to be okay, right?

So it's saying, go to God with that request. Right? So God's a good

God. He knows what you have need of even before you ask, right? He's a good heavenly father who delights to give his children good gifts, so go to him with that.

That's what it's saying. But then it's not just simply saying, Lord, give me the thing I need, right? It's saying, let your requests be made known to God, right?

But with everything with prayer, supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. So what you need to be doing in that point is, like, putting on thankfulness, putting off worry, right?

So, and this is the thing, like, I've never met the depressed person who has some sort of medical problem or anxiety, a person, you know, filled with anxiety who has, you know, some kind of vitamin deficiency, some kind of, like, thyroid problem, whatever.

I've never met that kind of person who, the things that come out of their mouth are, God is so good, and his plans are so right, and, you know,

I feel terrible right now, but he knows what he's doing, and I can trust him, and I'm so thankful for everything that he's done and helped me.

And how he's using this to make me more like him. Like, what you need is not to pray the anxiety way.

It's not just like, Lord, take away the worry, take away the worry. You need to cultivate the kind of character that is filled with thanksgiving no matter how you feel, right?

No matter how you feel. And if you're that, right, then the Bible says, the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension shall guard your hearts and your minds in Jesus.

And what does it look like to have God's peace guarding your hearts and mind? It says, finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is good repute, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things, right?

It's not about just praying the anxiety away, it's about actively fighting all those anxious and worried thoughts and making a pattern of thinking on what is true in this situation, what is honorable in this situation, what is pure in this situation, what is right in this situation, and I'm going to dwell on that, and I'm going to be filled with thanksgiving, right?

And not only that, the next verse says, let the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me practice these things, and the

God of peace will be with you. I'm going to make changes to my life, right? So, it's like the kind of individual who is worried about not having a job that provides enough for his family, and all he does is just,

Lord, help me quit worrying about it, help me quit worrying about it, help me quit worrying about it, right? And God's not taking the worry away.

It's like, well, yeah, because you need to go look for a job, man. You know, whatever is the things you've learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things.

You need to take steps, you need to change your behavior, right? You need to change what you're doing. And so, in a lot of these kind of situations, you have individuals who are weighed down by guilt and shame and worry and condemnation.

So, consider the example I've given, you know, just of the two -income family who probably has a bunch of pets and maybe one kid or something who is in daycare all the time, and they never talk to and never see because they're all addicted to their phones, and then they're eating things they shouldn't eat and all this stuff.

And like, not that there's any bad food, but you get what I'm saying. Like, just imagine that kind of scenario, and then they feel terrible all the time because they never read the

Bible, and they never pray all the time. And then, like, the caricature is that we're just looking at that person and saying, pray the worry away, right?

Pray the anxiety away, man. It's like, no, you need to fundamentally change everything about your life, right?

Yeah, it'd be really interesting to know with people who face, who deal with these things on a regular basis and really do struggle with it.

It would be interesting to know, like, hey, okay, so, but how often do you read your

Bible? How often do you meditate on the Word? How often are you praying?

How often are you going to church? How involved are you at your church?

What kind of church are you going to? What kind of church are you going to? How often do you serve other people?

I mean, how often do you have people over at your home and have dinner with them, for example? And all of these different things,

I mean, part of repentance is not just stopping the bad thing, right?

But it's replacing the bad thing with what God has called good, right?

So, in a scenario like that… I found in my life that the more that I've focused on those things, it becomes a lot,

I mean, number one, it just becomes a lot harder to want to continue in my sin anyways.

Right. But then there's so much more peace that I've found in pursuing obedience to the things that God's commanded, right?

Well, yeah, but it's not… just imagine that scenario and then what's happening is a person in that kind of scenario where they're just living a worthless life in general.

It's not amounting to much of anything. It's like what they do then is just like, well, I try to read my

Bible a few times this week or something and nothing changes, right?

And then they're like, well, that's irrefutable proof that it must be some medical problem, right? And then people on the outside are basically just looking at them in a sentimental way and know nothing about how they're living their life and then they're just like, well, they seem like a nice person, you know?

So, like, it must be something wrong with them. It's like you don't know anything about what they're actually doing in their life, you know?

Right. So, like, what has to happen is it's like that kind of person I'm talking about, they need more than just read their

Bible a couple times and see if everything is fixed. They need to develop, like, they need to totally… a lot of times they're probably not saved, but then a lot of times, like, what you need is you need, like, you need to look at that kind of person and in the vast majority of cases, like,

I don't see any fruit of the Spirit in your life. And what people think when you say fruit is like they do nice things sometimes, right?

Right, yeah. But do you see love? Do you see, like, is that person defined by love? Is that person defined by peace?

Is that person defined by long -suffering? Is that person, like, defined by gentleness, patience, self -control?

Like, is that person defined by any of those things? And in the vast majority of cases of individuals who are getting these labels and who everyone is so convinced that this is some sort of medical problem, like, you could never, like, that person would never be accused of ever thanking

God for anything, right? Right, yeah. There's no joy in their life. There's no peace in their life. All their, like, when you talk to them, it's a list of complaints.

It's a list of all the bad things that are happening. It's a list of all the disappointment and, you know, hey, how are you doing?

Oh, I don't feel good. You know, I still don't feel good. It's been a hard day. You know, everything's so tough because I'm so bored with my life and, you know, and all my first world problems and everything else.

And part of it really is that you have a generation of people who are just so bored, you know, because they don't have anything productive to do.

And then they, you know, try to drown it all out with entertainment and they feel worthless and everything else.

Now, what they need though is, like, you know, you need to think through biblical husband -wife roles, right?

And think through actually raising your kid and think through, you know, why is your house full of, you know, dog hair and feces and pee, you know?

I mean, there's so many things, like, you have to think through with that kind of thing and think through, like, are you going to a good church?

Are you ever reading your Bible? Are you praying? Are you, you know, are you other -centered? You know, it's amazing that the people who are depressed, you know, you mentioned, like, do you serve other people or you invite them over to your house?

Like, one of the main counsel you give people like that is that you need to go serve someone else and get your focus off yourself.

Because that'll help you, you know, to, like, have something, you're here not just for yourself, for other people, but, like, there's just comprehensive kind of life -changing things that most people need.

And, you know, and then what people, like, react to that is, like, there might be some random person somewhere along the line who, you know, really is filled with all the fruit of the spirit who just can't, like, just feels down because maybe there's something medically wrong with them.

And it's like, I'm not talking about that person. I'm talking about 99 % of the people who are getting these diagnoses after all the medical stuff has been rolled out because they're typical

Americans who are living typical American lifestyles. And, like, it shows, you know?

So, like, that's what we're talking about. Petey. Right. Now, this question, it might be kind of superfluous to ask it at this point, but I want to ask it anyways.

In terms of battling depression, part of what we're saying is, like, essentially repentance, right?

You know, pursue obedience to God. Is there any sense in which saying that means we're delving into prosperity gospel realm?

And the reason I ask this, I know you're laughing. I wanted to laugh, but I suppressed it. I suppressed it.

And I thought I did a pretty good job. Good job. Straight face. The reason

I ask this is because there's a lot of people who, you know, if you were to say, for example, hey, depression is not something that you should be turning to, like, psychiatric drugs to deal with in general, right?

There is a lot of, you get a lot of, you're going to get a lot of responses that are along the lines of, like, oh, okay, so, you know, when you break your leg, do you tell them to not go to the doctor, right, and just pray for healing?

Or when someone has diabetes, you know, do you tell them to, like, avoid the doctor and pray it away, right, at that point?

Or they have diabetes because they haven't been faithful enough or whatever. And so, people really do, they really do legitimately compare, like, a broken leg, for example, to depression as if they're the same thing.

So, the question then becomes, like, all right, our reading of Philippians 4, for example, are we reading a prosperity gospel version of Philippians 4?

This is the same thing that happened with the same -sex attraction Christian movement with Rosaria Butterfield.

You know, she described conversion therapy early on, you know, for years as a heresy.

It's like prosperity gospel, basically, just to say that you should try to pray the gay away, you know.

But then, recently, she put out an article saying that that was one of the most ignorant things she's ever said as a

Christian because that's just sanctification, right? Right, right. Part of the issue here is it's just we're often talking past each other with the language that we're actually using.

And so, and I don't know how to give, like, I think a good place to go would be our podcast on Is Depression Real?

where we do try to delve into this kind of question with much more depth. Like, part of the problem is that we're just not using words in the same kind of way.

And so, like, in the common mind, like, if you use a term like depression or anxiety, like, in common usage, that can mean a wide range of phenomenon, right?

So, like, depression can mean, like, you're sad because of the, you know, as we said in the

Is Depression Real? because the nacho fries were not on the menu, right? Right, yeah.

People use that word flippantly. Yeah, it can mean that. It can mean, like, your dad just died or bereavement, right?

Like, it can mean that, you know, you have cancer and you are suffering from a depressed mood that is resulting from the fact that you're in chemotherapy and you just feel like you have no energy all the time kind of thing, right?

And then it can mean that, like, sudden unexplained sorrow as the

DSM -5 clinical definition of depression is talking about that lasts for, that has been ongoing for a two -week period of time that has no medical cause.

And so, when we're talking about depression and we're talking about anxiety, we're talking about what the DSM describes as clinical depression, which is depression that now we realize, which we should have known for a long time, is not from the chemical imbalance, right?

So, we're talking about, like, a depressed mood for a two -week period of time that is not better explained through some appeal to some medical category at that point.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Alright, so that's the kind of depression we're talking about. We're talking about clinical depression.

We're not talking about any sadness in general. That's not what we're saying. And we're talking about anxiety.

We're not talking about any anxious feelings that a person might have because they have, like, a legitimate medical thing wrong with them.

We're talking about DSM -5 anxiety or DSM -5 depression in that way.

Now, repeat the question again. Is that basically prosperity to say that a person should have some expectation of being able to turn from that?

Yeah, like, without the drugs. The drugs don't work.

The drugs have significant side effects. The drugs are not performing better than a placebo. The drugs are highly addictive.

The drugs are, you know, just turning people into…

Mind -altering. They're not doing what you think they're doing. They're not medicine.

You know, all that aside, like, I don't know what the fruit of the spirit is if not love, joy, peace, long -suffering, gentleness, meekness, kindness, faithfulness, self -control.

I don't know what that is if you have a category for an individual who has, like, sorrow, right?

Destabilizing sorrow that has become their reason not to handle life, that is not grounded in some medical problem.

And so, what you have is, like, a rejection of faithfulness because, like, this destabilizing depression that's keeping them from being able to handle the basic issues of life, this debilitating mood of sorrow or hopelessness, is everything the

Bible says shouldn't be characterized by a Christian. So, the Bible says that we don't grieve as those who have no hope.

We're not held captive by the fear of death. We've been set free from the power of guilt and shame in our life.

Like, we are to be individuals who are filled with love, joy, peace, long -suffering. Whatever that is, it's not love.

Whatever that is, it's not joy. Whatever that is, it's not peace. Yeah. Whatever that is, it's not long -suffering. Whatever that is, it's not faithfulness.

And so, like, this idea that you can just be a Christian who is embodying all the anti -fruits of the

Spirit, right? Which are the works of the flesh. Yeah, yeah. Like, this is a list of the works of the flesh.

Like, your classic DSM -5 depression diagnosis or your classic

DSM -5 general anxiety disorder, these are a list of the…

You could just take the diagnostic criteria in either one, put it alongside the works of the flesh, and you can contrast it with the fruit of the

Spirit, and it's exactly the opposite. And so, what you have is you have a situation where the

Bible tells us what the fruit of the Spirit looks like, and the psychologists tell us that if an individual has none, they can't help it because it used to be there must be some chemical imbalance in their brain, and now it's like, well, we don't know anymore.

It must be their environment, right? Right. And I would just say, well, what are we doing? Like, the Bible says, be anxious for nothing, but in everything with prayer and supplication and thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

Like, I don't know what we do with that. Why do you worry about your life if now you have a label which came about by atheists who wanted to deny everything the

Bible says and give you an alternative explanation of what's going on. These just look like the devil's excuses to me to not have the fruit of the

Spirit, right? Right, right. This is the actual gospel, so we've been predestined in Christ for good works which

God has prepared before the foundation of the world that we should walk in them, right? We are confident that God who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete that work.

We understand that when we're saved, we're devoted to God in holiness, and He's began a good work,

He's going to faithfully complete that. And if you're a Christian, you're not going to be able to stop the fruit of the Spirit in your life.

That's just the way it is. And part of the problem, though, is that we're just not able to make basic distinctions along these lines with what we're even saying, and there's just such a pervasive assumption that when you see an individual who has no fruit of the

Spirit, it must be medical in problem. And not only so, I mean, with individuals I've interacted with, there's an expectation that you must withhold and suspend judgment indefinitely because it may be that at some point, somewhere along the line, we discover some new genetic thing or something that's causing it.

And so, basically, you just have an entire ceasefire that's put on the fruit of the Spirit, and I'm looking at it, and I'm just saying,

I don't know what to do other than just, maybe we should just, if it looks like a dog, smells like a dog, barks like a dog, maybe it is.

That's what it is. Call it what it is at that point. Yeah, yeah. So, in short, no, it's not proselytizing gospel.

Christianity, man. That's just Christianity 101. That's just the Christian life, yeah. The Christian life. And now, even in a case where someone has cancer, you know people who have cancer who are filled with love, joy, peace, long -suffering, gentleness, meekness, kindness, faithfulness, self -control, though they feel awful.

And you know those with cancer who, they have none of those, right, and they feel awful.

And so, the thing is, even if there is some legitimate mental disorder that is sapping your energy, there's nothing to stop you from being filled with love, joy, peace, long -suffering, and all that.

And I don't, like, I mean, frankly, I just, I don't know the situation where the person has come to me and says they're anxious or worried, and I look at their life and I say, oh, fruit of the spirit, man.

Like, I see all the opposite of it, you know. And so, even if you feel terrible, even if you can't get out of bed, what should be on your tongue is the fruit of the spirit.

But it's not, you know, in these cases. And so, what we're asked to do is we're asked to, like, deny that evidence in 99 .9

% of the cases because of the rare possibility that maybe somewhere along the line has all the fruit of the spirit and they really do have something really wrong with them.

And it's like, I just haven't met that person, man. But I'm sure that that person can exist, but in the main, that's just not what we're talking about.

And let's not, you know, let's not be obtuse. That's not what we're talking about in the main. All right, final question.

Got it. Just ask you questions and, at first, try to understand what it is that you're saying.

And so, I interacted with some people this last week, and inevitably, whenever you talk about this type of stuff, you're going to get a lot of people who are actually on antidepressants.

And so, I wanted to tell you, I wanted to describe two situations that were described to me, and then

I want you to tell me if they convince you that you're wrong with your stance on antidepressants, okay?

And I don't know why you're laughing. This is serious, Tim. All right.

Scenario number one. And by the way, both of these are, someone else is telling me this is their current situation.

So, I'm not making it up. I'm not exaggerating. This is what they told me, and I'm taking them at their word.

So, situation number one. You have a person who deals with depression and anxiety, and they tell you, hey, look, the meds work because I'm on 11 antidepressants right now, and I don't feel like I'm overwhelmed with depression and anxiety anymore, whenever I'm taking all of those medications.

Does that convince you? I'm convinced, man. You're convinced.

An hour and a half. I should have started with that. That was enough, man. I need to go home and rethink my life.

So, the person on 11 antidepressants. That did it for you, huh?

That did it. Throw everything you just heard out the window. Man, but that's so sad.

I mean, when you think about that, that is so sad to the point where… I know. I know. I'm pretty grieved over it.

That's the thing that is just so disturbing about this. And what happens is you have people who, because you're told that they work, right, and you get put on one, what happens is you get put on one drug, and at the beginning there's the placebo effect, there's the effect, the sugar pill high.

There's this hope that this will fix it, right? This will fix it. And so, what happens is for a few weeks you feel better because you have an object, anything that you can hope in.

But then it starts going down. The sugar pill, the novelty of it, that effect, that starts to wear off.

Then you go back to a doctor and you need something else. And what ends up happening is then you get on different drugs, and then what's happening is you're getting put on multiple drugs to manage the side effects from the other drugs.

Right. And so then pretty soon you're on 11 different drugs or something like that. I mean, that's more of an extreme case, but you're on 11 different drugs because they're all trying to manage different side effects for different drugs at that point.

You're just… Yeah. And then if you could imagine trying to get off of them, what a nightmare that would be, for sure.

And we're laughing about it, but I think we're laughing, but then it's not really funny in the sense of laughing at that person.

It's funny in the sense of just how ridiculous that sounds.

Because if we were talking about anything else, any other type of, anything like that, and you were saying, hey, look, this is how many it takes and it works.

It's the same kind of thing with the vaccine. Right. You have the person who is taking their third booster who is wearing their four masks.

You have President Joe Biden who's quadruple vaxxed and double boostered and then gets

COVID twice in the span of a few weeks. Didn't get their four boosters when we thought that the vaccine was supposed to be the all -purpose cure.

Right. And so then we're wondering what, this isn't a vaccine anymore, whatever, like this in the normal sense of the word.

But it's that kind of absurd scenario to where you're looking at a generation of people who…

And for an individual like that, it's because their brain is fried at that point, right? Right, yeah. But it's the same thing happening with the

COVID stuff. It's just like you're unable to see that if this was a real vaccine, it would work.

You know what I mean? Right, yeah. And so you're not laughing. You wouldn't have to take four and then wear four masks and then be mad at the people who don't.

That word talking, it doesn't seem like it works, man. Yeah, and even with that, it's like you're not laughing at the president.

Because especially at his age, it's a pretty serious thing actually to get

COVID, right? But then you are laughing at the… they're still sticking to the same old lines.

Not only are they sticking to it, they're doing so with threat of destroying your livelihood and their job and your ability to…

Right. It's the same thing that's happening in the psychological drug realm. It's like this is a threat, like lay off, right?

Yeah. And it's like what this is, I don't want people to be on 11 drugs. Like you're the counter example.

You're every evidence we need to say like don't go down this route, right?

Like you're not the positive test case for this. This is what we're trying to warn people about. Okay, scenario number two.

A person tells you that the antidepressants work because they deal with depression.

They face anxiety on a daily basis and they don't tell you how many antidepressants they're taking.

But they tell you that recently they, for one reason or another, ran out of their prescription and couldn't get it filled for a day or two.

And so the first day that they had no medication, they were completely bedridden and unable to do anything all day long.

And then the second day, they managed just enough strength to be able to get out of bed and struggle to get to the store and finally fill their prescription again.

And then on day three, they have their prescription, they take it, they're back to normal. Yep. Are you convinced?

I admire you and your ability to calmly relay these facts over.

It's definitely one of those things where you can't have your cake and eat it too.

And so part of what's happening is you're being told multiple irrational things all at once and that's part of the problem.

And so you have to hold several contradictory ideas in your mind. And so if you're a person who'd come along and say, hey, these things have massive side effects, everyone knows.

I mean, you're not allowed to say it, but everyone knows that there are massive side effects that are associated with this kind of stuff. Yeah, just listen to the commercials.

I mean, those guys say I'm so fast. There's so many of them that it still takes like 30 seconds sometimes.

They're talking as fast as our intro, faster maybe. You have to think about that, how unsettling that is to the fact that this drug may cause erectile dysfunction and cancer and permanently cripple your ability to walk.

It may render you paralyzed forever. And then people are like, whoa, I want to try it. It's like, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Ask your doctor about it. And they say it in such a nice tone of voice. But it's just like, man,

I don't want any of that. But that shows you how desperate people are in general. Just as a side note, people are that desperate.

And that should be sad. I mean, that people are that desperate to get the worry and the shame and the guilt and the condemnation and the sadness to go away that they'll latch on to poison in order to do it.

But what you're told is you're told they're not that bad and you're exaggerating and whatever else.

But then these are the kind of stories that I'm aware of on a regular basis of individuals who are –

I know that many people I know and I know many people who – even relatives who have been on this stuff and it's fundamentally messed with them and changed them in different ways.

And you can tell. You know what you're looking at. You can tell that there are all these side effects. But then part of the way – what's so pernicious about the lie – and this is what's so pernicious about it is you're told by faith that,

Nick, you have to trust by faith. Science is spoken. These things work. And so then you take them and they work for a little bit.

And then they stop working and it's like you need more or you need different types. And so it's just like you're getting cooked on – like the 11 example was an extreme example, but a lot of people were on multiple meds trying to manage the side effects from other meds.

And so – but then – so then it doesn't dawn on them that the medicine isn't fixing it.

They put their faith in the doctors and trust in the doctors and the medicine and there's nothing you can do to persuade them that it's not working.

And then what happens is once they come off, they feel crazy, right?

They feel nuts. And like that's all the evidence that they need that this medicine is working because when

I don't take it, I feel nuts. Yeah, I can't even get out of bed. Can't even get out of bed. But what actually happened is you're a drug addict now.

Right. And so we have comparable situations with caffeine. I mean just try to get off caffeine when you're addicted to caffeine.

And you'll see not that you have some sort of caffeine deficiency in your body, right?

Like you will see that you're entirely mastered by it and now like your body is even adjusting the way it processes based on the regular introduction of this drug in your body.

Your body is changing the way that you think and the way that you feel to compensate for this.

Now you're totally mastered on it and when you come out, you can barely see. Like when you come off caffeine, you can barely see and you can barely think and you might have a splitting migraine for days and want to like take a power drill to your head, right?

But that isn't because you – like the issue is that's not because you have a caffeine deficiency or something like that. That's because you're mastered by an addictive substance that's highly addictive.

And what people – what doesn't dawn on them is like you're suffering from drug withdrawal at this point.

Like this isn't normal for you. And so the same thing happens with caffeine. Like you only get to normal after you get clean of the caffeine for a significant period of time.

And then you realize what normal is actually like, right? And so like when you're mastered by caffeine, like what happens is like you think the caffeine is giving you energy.

Well, no, what's actually happening is caffeine is restoring you to normal function. And after you become significantly addicted to a while.

And so when you don't have caffeine, you're constantly on a downer. But that's a downer induced through drug addiction, right?

And the same thing is happening with like these kind of drugs. Like when you come off of it, like you think, well, now

I'm feeling normal because I don't have drugs. No, you're experiencing withdrawal, right?

That's what you're experiencing. And you're equating that with normal. But what you realize is once you get through the withdrawal stuff, then you'll figure out what normal is.

And you'll realize you don't have to take it. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. And I would just say as a side note, pray for those people because that's really concerning.

Those are obvious examples that it messes with you. Part of what's hard about it is like you want to have just an unreserved compassion for that kind of individual where you have the response that you're having to say pray for them.

But then part of the other, the difficulty though is that they're using that experience as a club to basically bash anyone who's criticizing the medicine at all, right?

Right, yeah. So like with the COVID cult, like part of the problem is that you have these people who are like,

I've seen Twitter accounts where they're just like so held captive to this fear of death.

You know, to where they've had their four vaccines. Not only have they had their four vaccines, they've given their kids the vaccines.

And then when they give their kids the vaccines, their kids have basically kind of had bad reactions to that.

And now their kids can't even walk and everything else. Like it's an objectively sad situation. And then they think they need to give them another one, right?

Right. And it's like your heart goes out to them in that situation. But then for whatever reason, they're so, like this is their way of managing life.

But then they're wielding their own experience as a club to force everyone else to follow them down this destructive rabbit hole or at least to approve of it, right?

Right. At that point, like there has to be some kind of like, hey, I feel bad that you are held captive by the fear of death and you refuse to go to work anymore and you're trapped in your home and you can't even go to your mailbox without adopting

Sharia law or whatever else. I feel bad for you that that's where you're at. But when you're taking your fear and you're turning that into a demand that the entire world refused to operate in a normal way anymore and that we take everyone's job and everything else.

At that point, it's like there's two responses. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's like on the one hand, it's like,

I'm sorry for you, but hey, we have to point out that this is lunacy. Does that make sense?

Right. Absolutely. And then in the case with the psychotropic drugs, when you have someone who's on 11 antidepressants or whatever, and that's irrefutable proof that the drugs work, it's like you're a cautionary tale.

You have to understand you're a cautionary tale and you can't use your experience as a club that you're going to bash everyone over the head with and basically say, you must agree with me.

You must affirm me. You must validate me or else you're a villain. We need to pray for you, but we also have to have the ability to step in and say, hey, that's not reasonable.

Right. Yeah. Well, we've gone way longer than I thought we would, but I was glad to.

I think it's been a pretty good conversation overall. So, Tim, is there anything you've got to say in closing? Oh, I mean,

I'm sure that there's plenty more to say on this subject, and I'm not sure that we're going to be able to say it all, but maybe that's a good place to end.

Yeah, I think that's a good place to go to leave on.

So, it's fun to be able to sit down and have these conversations and talk through it all, because I really do think that, especially, we live in a town where there's a liberal university in our town, and depression and anxiety,

I mean, those are probably two of the most common things that you'll talk to students about here.

And the suicide rate is really high. They're turning to the therapeutic animals.

Right. And so, yeah, no, they literally do. Yeah, they do actually do that.

It's pretty wild. There's all these issues, and then you look at the solutions provided by psychiatrists and whatnot, and they just don't seem to be working overall.

And I know so many people that have been on these things for years and years, and then they tell you.

It's funny, because they almost kind of get a little mad at you for talking about their depression.

And they basically respond with, well, hey, what do you know that I don't know? I've been the one dealing with this for years and years, and nothing's worked, so what is it that you know that I don't know?

Which is a pretty interesting response, because you're kind of admitting that you don't actually know what to do with your depression or your anxiety at that point.

So I really do encourage everyone who's listened all the way through this conversation to just have an open mind and humble yourself and realize what the scriptures say.

And just like last week, God's given us a pretty clear response to these things, and so hopefully that's encouraging for you and doesn't just drive you to despair for some reason.

And you find that you can actually trust in those things, because we can trust in those promises.

That is a good place to think about as an ending, too, is that I think there does have to be some kind of reality brought to this discussion to where if the

Bible says do not be anxious about anything, right? With everything, with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

And what you are being asked by our society right now is to put a moratorium on repentance and obedience to that verse.

20 % of the ladies right now are basically on some kind of antidepressants.

And so you think about all the Bible verses that apply, and you're being told that 20 % of the population really can't obey any of these

Bible verses. And that should be disturbing, and you do have to go back and say, who am I going to believe? Am I going to believe

God or am I going to believe psychologists at this point, right? Right. Yeah, when the Bible says don't worry, right, and the

Bible says don't be anxious about anything, when the Bible says we essentially should be filled with the fruit of the

Spirit, I do think you can look at this subject and it can get rather complicated, but your trust should just be in the

God of the Bible that He knows what He's saying, and you don't have to overthink it. Just trust what He says.

Right. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him, He'll direct your path. Just realize that He wasn't saying words that a large percentage of the population were totally and completely irrelevant to, right?

Right. Not only today, but for thousands of years, as if somehow we've gotten to some place where so many people are being drugged by so many different types of drugs, because they can't do the basic things the

Bible is saying, and at some point you just have to say, well, I'm going to look at this and I have to trust

God more than I trust whatever you're saying. Right. Absolutely. So in closing, hopefully, our hope is that you are encouraged by this conversation and that those of you listening can understand that there is actually a way to defeat depression, to overcome anxiety, and God spells it out clearly.

And not only does He spell it out clearly, but He makes promises, right? That if you dwell on things that are righteous, if you take your concerns to God, if you are in prayer with Him, if you are constantly pursuing thankfulness, then

He promises that peace will be with you. And so hopefully that's an encouraging thing that helps you understand that there is a way to defeat these things.

So we want to thank all you guys for listening. We thank you for just supporting us and letting us talk about these things and be able to spell them out clearly for you guys.

And our hope is that you are taking the things that you're learning here and you're applying it not only in your own life, but you are using it to help disciple the people that God has put around you, has put in your life.

And so our hope is that you are taking this out and you are discipling others with scriptures.

And I think this is definitely an area that we need to be very firm in and very strong in. So again, thank you guys and we look forward to having you on the next one.

If you would like to be Bible bashed personally, then please know that we also offer free biblical counseling, which you can take advantage of by emailing us.

Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.