Sermon Tone Analysis

*COME OUT OF YOUR CAVE*

*1 Kings 18:1 - 1 Kings 19:19*

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Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you felt like the world was caving in on you and you had no place to run and hide.

God seemed absent from your life , prayers (if you could pray) seemed to go nowhere, your inner being was full of pain, grief, sorrow, sadness, darkness, emptiness, and void of hope?

Well you are not by yourself!

*Depressed Saints*

Lurking beneath the stigma that many Christians with mental and emotional problems face is a simple question: Can a Spirit-filled Christian have emotional problems?

The emotional health gospel overlooks the record of the Bible itself and church history.

The Reformer who penned AA Mighty Fortress Is Our God.@ Martin Luther, in 1527 wrote: *A**For more than a week I was close to the gates of death and hell.

I trembled in all my members.

Chris was wholly lost.**@**

*Luther himself had written that *A**the content of the depression was always the same, the loss of faith that God is good and that he is good to me.**@*

The famous preacher Charles Spurgeon, who lit fires of the nineteenth-century revival movement, struggled so severely with depression that he was forced to be absent from his pulpit for two or three months a year.

In 1866 he told his congregation of his struggle: *A**I am the subject of depressions of spirit so fearful that I hope none of you ever get to such extremes of wretchedness as I go through.**@**

*

 

In the Bible we find that Moses, Elijah, Job, and Jeremiah suffered from depression, often to the point of being suicidal.

Job cried out in the midst of his sufferings,

 

*Job 3:23 Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in? 24  For sighing comes to me instead of food; my groans pour out like water.

25  What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.

26  I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil."*

*Job 7:6  "My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and they come to an end without hope.*

*Job 7:16 I despise my life; I would not live forever.

Let me alone; my days have no meaning.*

So the answer to our question is a definite yes: Spirit-filled Christians can experience emotional problems.

Those who adhere to the emotional-health gospel often believe that negative emotions are in themselves sinful.

We need to ask them how they account for the displays of Christ=s emotions.

In the Garden of Gethsemane

 

 *Mark 14:33 And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy;*

 

AVery heavy,@ literally indicates Jesus was feeling the weight of the sins of the world.

Even though He has foreseen His passion, in His humanity He agonized deeply over what was ahead.

\\ Abe very heavy@ This is the strongest Greek word in the NT for depression.

Paul writes with affirmation,

*1 Corinthians 2:3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling.

*

 

Later he wrote:

*2 Corinthians 7:5**  **For when we came into Macedonia, this body of ours had no rest, but we were harassed at every turn -- conflicts on the outside, fears within.*

While the church should never condone willful sin, it must learn to accept that people within it may suffer from emotional symptoms that are not the result of personal unconfessed sin.

We must take seriously Paul=s injunction:

 

*1 Thessalonians 5:14 And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone.*

The prophet Elijah learned a very difficult lesson in his dark moments of life and found himself hiding in a cave and isolated from everyone including his personal aide.

How Elijah got there, and what God did to bring him out with his life and ministry intact, is a fascinating story.

It=s also a lesson from Scripture filled with principles we can use during those times when the darkness seems to swallow us.

*The  Discouraged Prophet* Elijah was discouraged, downcast and even depressed.

Now when I say Elijah was depressed I=m not talking about clinical depression....  I=m referring to those periods we all have when we are physically or emotionally drained and the darkness overtakes us.

Times like these are a normal part of life.

*A Great Victory* Elijah=s depression followed a great victory .....secured his reputation as fearless prophet.

Israel ruled by spineless King Ahab and his wicked wife, Queen Jezebel.

Baal worship

God sent Elijah to challenge Israel=s paganism, and in a great contest on Mount Carmel

*1 Kings 18:19 Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel.

And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel's table."

20 So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel.*

There he built an altar to the Lord*: **1** Kings 18:38 Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.

39 And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God.

40 And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape.

And they took them: and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there.

*

 

So the enemies of  the people of God were destroyed and defeated and Israel underwent a tremendous spiritual awakening and revival.

*A Serious Threat*  When Queen Jezebel heard of what happened she threatened the life Elijah.

And rather that standing his ground strong and confident and courageous...

 

\\ *1 Kings 19:1-3 1 Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, "May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them." 3 Elijah was afraid and ran for his life.

When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, *

 

*A Hasty Retreat*  Faced with Jezebel=s threat, Elijah chose to run for his life into the desert.

By the time he stopped running and fell exhausted under a broom tree, he had sunk into a dark hole of depression.

He even prayed, 4 *that he might die.

"I have had enough, LORD," he said.

"Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors."*

Elijah became fearful, anxious, and afraid, and he ran over 150 miles.

That=s where we find him in 1 Kings 19:4

* *

*Elijah was a man just like us.

James 5:17.

* He was susceptible to physical and emotional breakdown just like you and me.

Elijah knew what it was like to feel the darkness descend and wrap itself around him.

*Have you ever been there?*

Have you ever said that?

It is possible to be serving the Lord and yet find yourself emotionally and mentally drained, depleted, and depressed?

Elijah=s condition had three components; *physical, emotional, and spiritual,* and God dealt with each one in turn.

* *

*Physical Exhaustion*

Elijah certainly manifested many of the classic symptoms of a person with normal discouragement.

He was fatigued and sluggish.

He had not only lost his zest for life and sense of purpose

He had even lost his will to live.

Elijah was no longer interested in being the man of God, standing against evil.

He no longer seemed to care that Israel was still in the clutches of Ahab~/Jezebel.

A sense of hopelessness and helplessness had enveloped him.

Fear and anxiety were clutching at his spirit.

His thoughts had turned to death as his best way of escape.

These feelings are usually a reaction to some loss, tragedy, or problem in a person=s life

When the problem hits and pressure mounts, then discouragement & depression sets in..

 

Let=s look at Elijah=s problem, because in it we may find help in understanding our problems and where to look for help when the darkness won=t go away.

Mount Carmel was very physically demanding and taxing.

It was no cake-walk.

His was hungry.

He was tired.

He was lonely.

He was worn out and burned out, at the breaking point.

*HALT*

 

When we are physically exhausted, not sleeping well or eating right

When our nerves are frayed by anxiety and fear,

We become candidates for depression.

That=s exactly what happened to Elijah.

He was physically wasted.

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*Emotional Stress**  *Elijah=s physical stress was mixed with severe emotional stress.